


Oh!

by May_Shepard



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Feels, First Love, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Masturbation, Mind Palace, Self-Stimulation, Sexual Fantasy, Written After TAB, lots of orgasms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-05-30 07:46:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6415045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May_Shepard/pseuds/May_Shepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The Mind Palace is a memory technique. I know what it can do; and I know what it most certainly cannot."</p><p>"Maybe there are one or two things that I know that you don’t."</p><p>An anatomy of the Mind Palace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this for funsies, but it looks like it's becoming ~~porn with plot. Orgasms ahoy!~~ a somewhat involved piece that tries to address some of the canonical features of the mind palace, namely its weird geometries / architecture, and the fact that a vast ("deeper") section of it is entirely Victorian. Mostly I wanted to spend some time speculating about Sherlock's apparent ability to bring himself off there, and the fact that Sherlock's deductions seem to have an erotic intensity to them. Boy's got a whole lot going on. 
> 
> I hope you like. Thanks for reading! Come say hi on tumblr (may-shepard).

The first time Sherlock uses his mind palace to bring himself to orgasm, he is alone in the lower (restricted) research area of the law library, at two in the morning, on a Saturday night.

Nineteen years old and miserable, he's tucked away at a disused study carrel at the back of the stacks, sprawled across two large leather chairs. One of the chairs houses his bottom; the other cradles his feet. He has a medieval tome propped across his knees. He turns the pages slowly, reading through an array of lurid criminal cases. The book is usually stored in a display case, the chief archivist's pride and joy. The lock was ridiculously easy to pick.

He tries to pretend he's enjoying himself. After all, if one has gone to the trouble of hiding from staff until the library has closed, with the sole purpose of leafing through things one normally wouldn't be allowed to touch, one should be having fun. He'd imagined, when he decided to do this, that the books, the leather and vellum and paper slowly crumbling to dust, all that obscure history, would provide him with hours of entertainment.

Instead he's restless, his body twitching. He fights the urge to fidget.

Victor is away for the weekend, called home by some family emergency. It's silly, but Sherlock misses him with everything he's got.

"I'll be back on Monday, sweetheart," Victor told him, twenty-one hours and eighteen minutes earlier, nudging him with his shoulder when Sherlock pouted.

He doesn't know anyone else who could get away with calling another bloke _sweetheart_ , in public, and often. He doesn't know anyone else who could get away with keeping a dog in the first year dormitory, either. There's certainly no one else who would bother looking after Sherlock, like Victor had, after said dog bit him, especially since it was Sherlock's fault entirely.

They're friends now, Sherlock and Victor's rat terrier, whose name is Zeus.

Sherlock and Victor are something more than friends, Sherlock hopes fervently. Right now, it's a very frustrating and confusing something more, involving invitations to parties and being called _sweetheart_ and once, in front of all of Victor's friends, being kissed very loudly on the cheek.

Sherlock is on fire for Victor, and he doesn't know what to do.

He puts aside the medieval book, closing the cover carefully. He's done with descriptions of people being drawn and quartered. 

He shifts on the chairs, and regards the other books he's planned to read, a tall stack of them sitting on the desk. As bored as he is, he can't bear the idea of leaving the library. Crossing campus earlier was a nightmare, the air full of the hoots of students enjoying their night of freedom, jubilant and fueled by anxiety and lust and drink. Dull.

(Intimidating and awful, without Victor.)

He selects a book at random from the pile. _Famous Crimes of London_ , published in 1902. Rubbish, all of it, except: there's one promising story about a series of murders, committed by a woman made famous for her public suicide. Swallowed a gun while wearing her bridal gown. Nasty. Impressive. That might have been enough to make her famous on its own, but then she returned from the grave, killed her husband, and went on, apparently, to murder a host of other men.

Sherlock smiles as he reads. He's always liked ghost stories. He decides he wants to keep this one, maybe see if he can figure out how the bride faked her death.

He reads the pages again, soaking in the details, then leans back, and closes his eyes.

He breathes deeply, and focuses on his feet, resting his consciousness on them until they relax. He shifts his awareness higher, through his lower legs, knees, thighs and hamstrings, feeling the taut lines of his muscles, the numbness in his buttocks from sitting too long. Higher still: low belly, chest, shoulderblades, willing each part to let go of its tensions. Spine, neck, shoulders, and arms, down to the tip of each finger. He lingers on the muscles of his face, through the jaw and cheekbones, ending on the crown of his head, then focusing on his breath as it moves softly in and out. 

When he's thoroughly drooping, he wills himself to drop down, into his own interior, moving deeper and deeper, until he finds himself walking on thick carpet. He's in the Victorian wing of his mind palace, the long hallway heavy with woodwork and fleur-de-lis wallpaper, painted green and gold.  

The palace is coming along nicely. It's an Escher-inspired series of paradoxical staircases and contradictory architectural styles. It serves the purpose of the memory technique Mycroft taught Sherlock very well, but it's positively decadent in its details. He's worked on it until it's become uniquely his.

He inhabits this place in a way that Mycroft never intended. He's spent hours—days—down here, in conversations not imagined, so much as lived.

In the Victorian wing, he keeps the nineteenth century scientists: Darwin, Curie, Tesla. It also houses serial killers. Dear old Jack, of course, who cannot show his face, because history hasn't given him one. Burke and Hare, whose business providing corpses for medical research was so successful, they took to murder to keep up with demand. Hilarious, those two. And Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, who poisoned prostitutes for fun. Not so hilarious.

He imagines that this new murderess, Emelia Ricoletti, with her penchant for killing men, will have some things to say to Cream. He wonders if she'll say them with a gun.

He makes a room for her, something he imagines she'll like, all gauzy curtains over bright windows, and then he summons her.

She frowns at the light. _Very well_ , he thinks: _nightfall, then_. He darkens the sky for her, and stores away the details of her case in pictures and books, in the small details of her room: a white rose with a red tint at its core; a drawing of a woman sitting at her vanity which, when viewed from afar, appears to be a human skull. He tells her to remember for him. She hums a pretty tune as she paces the room in her blood-soaked dress, her red slash of a mouth grinning. 

He shuts the door on her, leaving her to settle into the layers of his mind.

He lingers in the hallway, reluctant to leave, now that he's down here. The library won't be open for several hours, so he needn't worry about interruptions. His body, as far as he can tell, is still comfortably slung across the generous chairs. No one can hear him. No one can see him.

He pauses at a door with a bright red handle. (Symbolism obvious, even a bit gauche. No matter. This place is his alone.)

He smiles softly as he caresses the wood panels of the door. He made this room, designed it in his thoughts, and peopled it as he pleased, but he's never dared to go inside. He shivers with anticipation.

 _No time like the present, ha ha ha_. He stops long enough to make sure he's appropriately dressed, changing his blue trousers and button-down shirt for a charcoal grey suit. The waistcoat is ruby red, embroidered with yellow bees and flowers. The jacket has era-appropriate tails. He decides against the customary top hat, preferring not to muss his hair. He wants to look his best.

Before he can think better of it, he opens the door.

"Mr. Holmes."

The man who greets him is young and handsome, as are all the men here.

"Hello, Billy." Sherlock smiles, and allows the man to take his coat. A shiver of anticipation runs down his spine.

He's been dreaming of this room for weeks, ever since he read _the book_ , which, to say the least, changed his life entirely. _The book_ , written by a disgusted, outraged (probably closeted) gentleman, _Of the Molly-Houses_ (published 1896), details the hidden history of male homosexuals in Victorian London, the places they met, the things they did. Although the man who wrote it did so out of an impulse to condemn, the book screams one message out from every page, a message meant just for Sherlock: _you are not alone_.

The book is in his room across campus, hidden between his mattress and box spring. He stole it from the library, unable to bear the idea of it rotting away, neglected and unread. He's spent night after night going through its chapters on how men behaved, a hundred years ago, when they wanted other men: the way they dressed, the way they moved, and the way they watched each other. Without words, they told each other their secrets. He's sat up reading _the book_ until sunrise, brushing his fingers over the illustrations of beautiful men in their suits, some with a hint of makeup, leaning a bit too close to their friends. Their smug smiles.

They know something Sherlock doesn't. They know how to be happy.

Billy watches him patiently. Down the hall is a tea-room, just like the ones described in _Of the Molly-Houses_ , a place where men can meet and talk and even dance with each other, as freely as they please.

Sherlock can hear them now, men talking and laughing, their voices smooth, rich, and sophisticated. His nerves jangle. He's never been very good at parties.

He shouldn't worry. He knows it's completely safe. This is a more tender place than any of the common areas at school, where no one talks to him. No one will hoot at him here, or tell him he's a bore, or call him a freak. Well, Dr. Cream calls him all sorts of names, but then again, he would.  

"Excuse me, Sir, but Mr. Trevor is waiting for you," Billy says.

 _Oh_. Sherlock's stomach flips. _Oh no_. A sudden bout of nerves is enough to make him want to bolt. He never meant to conjure Victor. This is supposed to be his alone, this room, a place where he can run a very particular type of personal experiment. It isn't supposed to involve real people he actually knows.

He runs through the implications, his brain stuttering.

There are no real people here. Just simulacra. Victor here isn't Victor. He's a version of Victor, one who fits in this world, one who understands—

One who understands what men do together, in places like this. One who is here to—do those things.

 _Oh_.  

Suddenly he wants this, more than he perhaps should. He's never been very good with shoulds, see above re: breaking into libraries on a Saturday night. See above re: allowing every _sweetheart_ to carve a deeper groove in his heart and groin, until he can't breathe without the boy who says it.

Of course Victor is here.  

Sherlock tugs down his waistcoat and screws up his courage, and walks toward the light. The room opens to his gaze as he moves into it, expanding according to the strange geometry of the mind palace. By the time he enters it, it's huge.

He recognises some of the men gathered here, or at least, some of their features: a wry smile borrowed from a boy he literally bumped into on his way to class last week, a set of perfect teeth. They're standing close to each other in pairs and groups of three or four, talking and laughing and oh, touching.

There are no barriers to touch here, no ideas that it's wrong or sick or weak. To his right, a man raises another man's hand to his lips and kisses it, looking up at him under thick dark eyelashes. To his left, a broad, masculine hand settles on a lower back and caresses, moving lower. Sherlock blinks and swallows, his whole being on fire now. This place, this place is like no other. This place is his, and he belongs here.

"Sherlock!" Victor smiles at him from a crowd of men.

He's beautiful, just as he is in reality, all fine black skin that looks like it's never seen a blemish, and close cropped dark brown hair, and laughing eyes. His body, his rugby player's body, is just as muscular and sturdy here, as it is in the world.

An aura of golden light surrounds Victor, just like it does whenever Sherlock sees him in the real world.

"How's your hand, sweetheart?" Victor asks, still shouting at him, unreachable across the sea of men, all tight waistcoats and cool glances.

Sherlock looks down at it. The bandage he's wearing in mundane reality isn't here. Nor is the rough circular tear in his skin. Here, there are are just two neat puncture wounds.

He wouldn't lose the bite mark altogether, not here, not in this place. It's the reason he and Victor are whatever they are to each other.

"Fine," he says, holding up the hand. "Healed up quite well."

Victor is looking at Sherlock like he always does, like they share a secret. Sherlock has no idea what the secret is, but he hopes, he hopes.

Now a man leans in and whispers in Victor's ear, and both of them are watching Sherlock, and he's standing there without a clue. Victor walks toward him, skin dark and luminous above the cream of his suit, and there is nothing secret about the way he touches Sherlock now.

First, he reaches for Sherlock's hands. "I've waited for you."

It isn't true, Sherlock thinks, as he allows himself to be pulled in. Victor is always surrounded by friends. He's made time for Sherlock, sure, but that was out of pity, that was because he felt bad about Zeus biting him. That was—

 _Oh_. Victor's hands move down Sherlock's back, settling very low, rubbing circles, as Victor closes the space between them, pressing the whole length of his body against Sherlock's, moving in a slow dance. There's music now, where there was none before, and men are pairing off to dance together, their voices hushed, the sound of shifting fabric and soft footfalls filling the room.

Sherlock puts his arms around Victor's neck and hangs on for dear life, his head spinning. He's thought about this. Of course he has. He would have to be a complete idiot not to have imagined what it would feel like to have Victor's hands on him. In this room, he doesn't have to imagine. It comes to him in shockingly vivid detail, the firm pressure of Victor's hands as they hold his hips; the scent of Victor, warm and manly.

He's so very handsome in all the ways Sherlock is not: solid and confident and muscular, generous with his praise and his laughter; humble and interested in everyone around him, interested in Sherlock, in a way that always seems completely genuine.

Victor is a mystery to Sherlock, his friendship the most surprising thing that's ever happened to him.

In the back of his mind, he's dimly aware of the library, of his body propped across two chairs, and of how very, very hard he is, his cock straining in his pants. He doesn't dare open his zip and take himself out, even though he's sure he won't be disturbed. He's never done anything like this in his mind palace before, and he's afraid that if he surfaces long enough to adjust his clothes, he won't be able to get back here.

Victor is humming along to the music, his voice rich and deep in Sherlock's ear. Sherlock allows himself to be held, his body responding much more readily than it ever has to his own touch.

He sighs, and his eyelids flutter, and the room changes. The men around them aren't dancing any longer. They're kissing, lips pressing wetly, tongues gliding. Sherlock catches a hint of pale flesh from the corner of his eye. They're unbuttoning each other, these gentlemen, they're palming each other's cocks through trousers that are suddenly far too tight. They're stripping off jackets and waistcoats and shirts. Sherlock's breath comes thicker and heavier now. He watches the scene unfold and feels Victor's hands moving faster across his back.

The clothes turn into soft blankets and pillows as they hit the floor.

The rules do not apply here. Sherlock giggles with nervous delight.

Everyone else in the room is on the floor, naked and moaning and writhing, a riot of flesh and pleasure, hands and mouths everywhere. Only Sherlock and Victor remain standing.

Victor tugs at Sherlock's jacket. "May I, sweetheart?"

Sherlock nods, and uses his shaking hands to open Victor's coat. He can't do it fast enough, but they laugh and the mind palace blinks and the clothes are gone. They're lying on the floor too, rolling on soft blankets and pillows among all the other moaning bodies, completely nude and free.

Victor holds him and lines their hips up, grinding slowly, prick to prick. The sensation of skin on skin is so much, Sherlock gasps. He's already trembling on the edge of pleasure, more than ready to tip over. Victor's mouth presses to his, Victor's pillow lips, firm and warm, caressing him. Victor's tongue slips into his mouth and Victor's hand slips down to grasp his arse while his hips roll and their cocks slide against each other. All around them, the chorus of moans and sighs increases, and men are crying out, coming and shouting and laughing out their _ohs_.

Sherlock can't tell if he's moaning aloud with his actual physical throat. He's too far gone to care, too deep in the mind palace and Victor's embrace, too aware of the hands on his buttocks. In the room in his head, Victor calls him sweetheart again and again.

Dimly he's aware of fumbling to press his real hand to his own crotch, a small amount of pressure more than enough to take him over the edge, and he's coming, orgasm rolling over him, making a wet mess in his pants. The damp sensation pushes him out of the mind palace and back into the reading room, his shoulders and neck stiff from arching up over the back of the chair, his legs numb.

He blinks. He's never thought of using the mind palace in quite this way before. A whole new world has just opened up to him, and it's all his, and it's brilliant.

"Oh!" he says aloud, his laughter echoing through the empty library.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He was a hearty, full-blooded fellow, full of spirits and energy, the very opposite to me in most respects, but we had some subjects in common, and it was a bond of union when I found that he was as friendless as I._
> 
> ~Arthur Conan Doyle, _The "Gloria Scott"_

* * *

 

"I don't have friends."

Victor says the words so quietly, Sherlock isn't sure, at first, that he means to say them at all.

Sherlock is slack-jawed, his muscles uncoiling on a pile of cushions in the corner of Victor's dorm room. His wine glass, tragically empty, lies on its side, too far out of reach. He believes someone knocked it over while trying to walk past him, maybe (probably) on purpose.

Now Victor is sitting on the ancient ottoman, looming over Sherlock, beautiful and reeking of cigarette smoke. Sherlock vows to take up smoking over the summer holiday so he will have an excuse to be near Victor more often, when school starts again. He imagines taking a cigarette from him, placing it between his lips, offering it for Victor's flame.

 _Burn me up_.

Victor repeats himself: "I don't have friends."

"What?" Sherlock struggles to sit up. The cushions shift beneath him. Zeus, who has curled up on the pillow nearest Sherlock's head, growls a protest, then settles back into sleep with a sigh.

Victor watches Sherlock, his smile gentle, his teeth just showing between barely parted lips. His lips are so full. They look soft.

In the mind palace, sometimes they are soft, yielding and warm and wet. Sometimes they are firm.

Sherlock suppresses a shiver. He's spent countless hours with Victor in the room with the red door handle, doing things he can only dream of doing in real life. In real life, all he has is scene after scene like this one, strange discussions that seem to allude to more, but never go anywhere. Still, he wouldn't give them up for anything.

Victor's room, destroyed by end-of-term party goers, is empty now, except for the two of them. Sherlock has waited hours for the last few hangers-on to leave, so he can steal a few minutes alone with Victor.

After tonight, there is only packing up his room and the train journey back home and the slow death of the long vacation, three months of boredom and Victorlessness.

"I don't have friends." Victor's eyes are hooded. He's probably drunk too. He isn't making sense.

"What do you mean? Fifty of them just left here. Couldn't hardly get rid of them." Sherlock's response comes off much shirtier than he intends, but Victor is being ridiculous. Sherlock's the one with no friends.

"You did though. You got rid of them. Clever boy."

The compliment makes Sherlock smile. "I did. A bit."

"You told everyone that Seb isn't sleeping with that barmaid he's been boasting about all term."

"Well he isn't. Men are not her area."

Victor laughs, then looks down at his hands. "How could you possibly know that?" His voice drops into a raspy whisper.

"Look at her glasses."

"What about them?"

Sherlock shrugs. Time to show off a bit. He's been studying human behaviour very closely lately. He has plenty of motivation for doing so. "She takes them off when he talks to her. Nearsighted. Doesn't even want to look at him. Can't blame her. Pushes them up her nose whenever she's talking to a pretty girl. Just saying."

Victor nods. His hands fidget. _Nerves_. "You said Kent cheats on his tests."

"No one could get that much ink on his sleeve by normal means. 'Sridiculous. Keeps the papers tucked up under his cuffs."

"Like I said, clever boy."

The compliment makes Sherlock's heart burst with joy. "Clever? They think I'm dreadful. Hate me."

"I like you."

Sherlock smiles at that. He worries Victor will grow tired of him, just like everyone else has. So far so good, apparently. Still, he should be more careful.

The fact is, he invented this game, deducing people, because he is desperate to understand Victor, the things he says, the things he does. He's been studying human behaviour, body language. He's been practicing on everyone he sees, trying to crack a code: how the things people say and do reveal what they are really thinking. He's come to some rather exciting (and potentially life-changing, therefore terrifying) conclusions about Victor, but he doesn't know what to do about them.

There's an unbridgeable gap, an impasse. He knows about Victor, he's almost certain he knows, but he doesn't have a clue what to do about it, besides dream, and dream.

"What do you mean, you don't have friends?" he asks again, unable to respond to the fact that Victor has just said he likes him. "Sounds like nonsense."

"Well, they come here, and they spend time with me, but they don't know me. Not really."

Sherlock props himself up on his hands, fighting the pillows until he's fully upright, spilling Zeus onto the floor in the process. Zeus stares at him, eyes full of terrier outrage, then turns around twice and flops back down, his body drawn into a circle.

Sherlock kneels on a pillow at Victor's feet. If he reaches out, he can touch Victor's knee, slide his hand up his thigh, like he's done so many times in the room in his mind. Instead, his hands dangle uselessly at his sides. He watches Victor's face and waits for him to continue speaking.

Victor turns his head to look at the fire. His skin shines in the light. _Can't face me and say what he needs to say_. "A bloke like me...I can't afford for most people to know who I really am. You know? Friends should know each other."

Sherlock nods, taking in the new information. He knows what those words mean, what they usually mean. His heart is thumping hard, trying to beat its way out of his chest.

"They do like you, Victor," Sherlock offers. It feels inadequate. "They do." _I do_ , he adds, silently.

Victor smiles, his eyes searching Sherlock's face. His fingers fidget on the worn velvet of the ottoman, tugging at loose threads. Sherlock inhales sharply. _He wants to touch me_. He doesn't dare hope that he's right. He's imagined this scenario so many times in the room with the red door handle, he fears he's in danger of confusing fantasy with reality.

Victor's palm rubs the velvet of the ottoman, petting it. Sherlock has never been envious of a piece of furniture before, but he is now. Victor looks at him thoughtfully.

"I think, you and I, we understand each other. I'd like to think so. I don't have friends, Sherlock. I've only got one." The corner of Victor's eye squints. _Fear. He's afraid._

"Okay," Sherlock manages to say. His voice is unsteady.

Victor sighs, and stands, and paces the room. Sherlock's lower legs and feet are numb from kneeling. If he stands, he fears he will fall. He leans forward and pulls himself up onto the ottoman, shuffling his feet to rid himself of pins and needles. He is facing the window, facing Zeus. Victor is behind him. He doesn't dare turn around and look. The room is as thick with tension as it is with stale cigarette smoke.

"Sweetheart, can I ask you a question?"

Sherlock freezes. Victor never calls him _sweetheart_ when they are alone together, as if it's just for show, that term of endearment. It is exactly that, endearing, but all year it's been as if using it when they're alone would be crossing a line.

Now that line has been crossed. Victor sounds far away, his voice small and vulnerable.

"Yes. What is your question?"

"Will you come visit me this summer? Dunnithorpe is huge and there's no one there but me and the Dad. He doesn't mix with company much and I'll—"

"Yes."

"—miss you."

Sherlock's entire body is tense. Victor will miss him. Victor—brilliant, popular, handsome, generous Victor—will miss _him_.

"Yes." Sherlock manages to say it again.

"Yes?" He can feel Victor's grin from all the way across the room, can hear it in his voice.

He nods without turning around, terrified to show how happy he is, how relieved. "Okay."

Victor strides across the room, and plucks Zeus up from his cushion. Zeus growls and snaps fiercely, furious with the third interruption of his sleep in the last five minutes.

"There there, my friend!" Victor soothes the dog, stroking his head. Zeus shivers. "The best news! Sherlock will come visit this summer!"

Victor is grinning, his eyes dancing with delight, his strong hands holding Zeus and petting him as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, a celebration. Sherlock loves this about Victor: when he is really happy, he can't contain his joy. 

"Come for a month, if you can. July is beautiful, warm enough for swimming." He winks. "You'll love the lake. Swimming by starlight. If you've never done that, you must!"

Sherlock slides his left hand up and pinches the skin of his right inner arm, hard. It hurts. He doesn't wake from the mind palace. This is no elaborate fantasy, no dream.

"All right," he says, and he can't help it. He smiles.

Victor laughs. "All right. That settles it."

Sherlock's heart is so full, he thinks it might burst.

His bladder is right there with it. He's waited to go to the loo all evening, afraid of missing out, afraid that Victor will disappear. He has to leave. He never wants this to end.

He stands, wobbling on his feet. He's grinning like an idiot, but he doesn't care. Friends smile at friends, don't they?

Victor watches him, still dancing with Zeus.

"Put him down," Sherlock says. "Let him sleep."

Victor kisses the top of Zeus's head, his eyes fixed on Sherlock, and sets the dog down on the pile of cushions. Zeus climbs over them, into the middle, turns around three times, and settles with an audible sigh.

Sherlock's stomach flips. His chest is flayed open, his heart plainly visible. He would never leave if he didn't have to pee so urgently. He is breathing hard. He curses his body for needing to be looked after.

"Until July, then." He offers his hand for Victor to shake. He can't imagine leaving this room without touching Victor in one way or another.

Victor stares at the hand. He takes it, pressing his warm, broad palm to Sherlock's, his fingers sliding against Sherlock's wrist. Sherlock stares at the place where they're joined, the white of his skin enfolded in the dark brown of Victor's. Unbidden, a memory from his mind palace leaps to the forefront, of Victor taking him in his mouth, Victor's lips around Sherlock's cock. Sherlock blushes from the soles of his feet to his hairline.

Victor turns Sherlock's hand, caresses the back of it, and bends forward to place a kiss there. Victor's lips are soft, and warm, and dry. Sherlock inhales sharply.

"Until July," Victor says. 

***

Sherlock floats back to his dorm on a wave of love and lust.

Getting out of Victor's room is an awkward struggle. He mumbles his goodbyes, face red, stumbling over himself, gratitude and longing and anticipation jumbling together in a messy mix.

He gets himself down the stairs on shaky legs, pushing his way out into the cool, fresh spring air. A light rain falls. He is barely able to unbutton his trousers and get himself out of his pants before his bladder finally lets go. He pisses like a racehorse, forever, into the shrubbery to the side of the dormitory door, sweet relief running out onto the ground.

Now he's homeward bound, the new data he's gathered buzzing through his system like a drug.

Victor feels alone in the world. He can't be himself in company, not really, can't let the other boys know who he is.

 _A bloke like me_. A kiss applied to the back of Sherlock's hand. Sherlock lifts the hand and places it to his lips, imagining he can taste Victor there. His whole body is alive with that one touch, the promise it implies, and the greater promise of a whole month with Victor in his huge ancestral home, entire wings and corridors in which to get lost together (in which to do anything they want). Unlike the dorms, where there is never enough time or enough privacy, they'll be left alone there.

They'll swim under starlight, in the lake. Darkness will cover them and no one will see.

"And what will happen then?"

Sherlock whispers the words to himself. His heart is singing, his skin buzzing, his blood racing.

He's half hard by the time he gets to his room and closes the door behind him. This moment deserves to be celebrated, and he knows exactly how.

He toes off his shoes and strips off all his clothes before flopping down on the bed. He barely has the chance to get his hands on himself before his cock is filling, growing harder and harder by the second. For a moment he's tempted to simply masturbate. He's already close, and he knows that if he just thinks about Victor's words and the look in his eyes and the touch of his hand and the brush of his lips, that will send him flying over the edge.

He releases himself and folds his hands across his chest. He wants to do this properly, mark this moment well. He takes in a deep breath, then another, allowing himself to relax. He's still on fire, still dying to get himself off, but he's been spending so much time in the mind palace lately, dropping into it is second nature. A few more breaths, and he's down in the hallway of the Victorian wing, grand wooden arches overhead, carpet plush beneath his bare feet. He dresses himself in pyjama bottoms and a dressing gown, things that can be easily stripped away. He doesn't want to waste another moment.

The red door handle is hot to his touch.

The room has changed once again. It's different tonight. It's smaller. Two high-backed chairs sit by a roaring fire. No Billy, no one except himself and the man sitting in the chair closest to the door.

"You don't have friends," Sherlock says, bold in this place, like he can never be in reality.

"I've only got one," Victor replies, holding out his hands. He's dressed just like Sherlock, his robe falling open to reveal an expanse of chest, skin gleaming in the firelight. "Come here."

Sherlock reaches out to take Victor's hands, not wasting a moment, and places them on his waist, guiding them beneath the robe, which parts for Victor and slides off Sherlock's shoulders, slithering to the floor at Sherlock's feet. "Victor."

Sherlock's breath quickens and he allows Victor to pull him onto his lap. Sherlock's legs part, his knees resting on either side of Victor's hips. Victor rolls his hips and guides Sherlock down onto him, their erections pressing and sliding against each other through the thin material of their pyjamas, their bodies tight together.

Sherlock rides Victor for several long, aching moments, his face buried in the side of Victor's neck, Victor's hands directing his hips. The dream of friction isn't enough to finish him off, but it's more than enough to make him as hard as he's ever been. In his dorm room, his skin grows cold and his cock is standing straight up from his body, triumphant in the empty air. He has learned to surface just enough to be aware of what's happening in the real world, without losing the total sensory experience of the mind palace.

"You're like me. You're just like me," Sherlock mumbles into Victor's hair. He knows Victor understands.

Victor murmurs, "My boy, my beautiful boy," and it's almost enough to make Sherlock come then and there. By the mutual understanding only possible in the mind palace, they shift, Sherlock lifting up onto his knees, their scant clothing conveniently gone altogether.

How real lovers arrange and decide these things, Sherlock is dying to know. He suspects the answer will disappoint, but tonight has given him high hopes. If anyone can sort it out, he and Victor can.

Victor's cock is hot and hard and exactly what Sherlock needs and wants inside him. He knows the physics of this is all wrong; in reality they couldn't do what they're doing now, not without making substantial preparations, but the mind palace has its benefits. He is totally ready and open for Victor, his hole wet and slick. He heaves with desire on his narrow bed in the dorm room, even as, in the mind palace, Victor lifts him up and rubs his cock along the crack of Sherlock's arse.

Everything is easy. Victor slides into Sherlock in one smooth motion, tight inside him, enough to burn a little, but so good.

Victor's hands are on Sherlock's hips again, rolling him, lifting him, and letting him slide back down.

"Sweetheart," he moans, filling Sherlock with the sound of his voice, and filling him with his cock, thick friction working Sherlock open from the inside out. Sherlock's prick is trapped between them, rubbing against Victor's abdomen as they pick up speed.

Sherlock tries, as always, not to touch himself in the mind palace. He knows there's a connection between his ability to come without touching himself in the physical world and not touching himself here. Right now he can't help it. He's too excited about what Victor told him tonight, about the fact that they will be together for an entire month this summer, about the way that all signs are pointing to yes, all signs are pointing to this.

Victor bounces Sherlock up and down the length of his cock now, harder and harder, thrusting his hips up to plunge into him again and again. Victor groans and writhes and Sherlock can't wait any longer. He gets his hand on himself, on himself in the mind palace and on his aching erection in the surface world, and pulls.

Victor pumps frantically into him, his cock straining and pulsing. Sherlock is moaning and hanging on to Victor's shoulder for dear life, even as his other hand strokes as fast as he can, because he knows that Victor is close. Here, in this place, they always come together.

Victor cries out, his hot release filling Sherlock to the core, spurting and pumping into him. Sherlock spills out thick gouts of hot come onto Victor's belly, his orgasm never better as he gasps out the last of it and pants noisily against Victor's forehead.

On the surface, Sherlock always feels awkward, all gangly limbs and half-hearted sentiments, poorly expressed. Here, in this room, his slender body is good and firm under Victor's hands, his release slick and generous, covering both their bellies.

He hasn't thought through the mechanics of disengaging from penetrative sex, and doesn't need to, here. Victor is inside him, and then he isn't, and he's cradling Sherlock, laying him out across his lap and holding him, caressing him.

"I love you," Victor says. "I love you so much, my beautiful boy."

Sherlock sighs. In this warm, safe place, Victor knows that Sherlock loves him back. He doesn't have to say it.

"July," Sherlock says instead, smiling as Victor kisses the corner of his mouth.

"July," Victor replies.

Sherlock surfaces, his thighs and belly sticky with come. He takes a handful of tissues from the box by his bed and does his best to clean himself up before scrambling under the covers. He's freezing, his skin cold, the room damp with the chill of late spring. _Should have thought it through, gotten under here before_ , he thinks, curling into a ball, pulling the covers up over his head.

He smiles, watching his trunk and suitcases emerge in the mellow light coming in through his window, as daybreak approaches. When he wakes, he will pack, as quick as he can. July is only three weeks away, hardly any time at all. He'll go home, spend some annoying time with family, and then, soon enough, leave for Dunnithorpe, and Victor.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It is a capital mistake to theorise before you have all the evidence."
> 
> ~A Study in Scarlet

The night before Sherlock leaves for Donnithorpe, he doesn't sleep, but packs, unpacks, and repacks his large suitcase and messenger bag. He builds a small pile of books to bring on the trip: too many. He settles on a biography of Paracelsus, which he finds amusing; a forensics textbook; and a history of coffee, which he thinks Victor will like. He wonders if he will have time to read. He hopes not.

Will he need pyjamas? He usually sleeps in pyjamas. Perhaps Victor won't like them. Maybe Victor loves pyjamas. He packs three sets.

He loads up a plastic shopping bag with shampoo, conditioner, gel, anti-frizz agents (two kinds). He fears bed head. He imagines he'll rise early each morning and arrange himself so he looks acceptable. He wonders if he and Victor will sleep in the same bed. Isn't that what people do? He blushes as he shoves the bag into the corner of his suitcase.

He waits until his parents have gone to sleep, and he can hear the faint sounds of his father's snores coming from their room, before he retrieves a discrete unmarked paper bag from his desk drawer. It holds condoms and lube. He places it in the centre of his bed. He frowns at it, paces the length of his bedroom rug, and frowns some more.

Purchasing these items was a strange exercise in public display: _hello, yes, I am having the sex, or hope to be having it, soon_.

He expects, if Victor wants what Sherlock wants ( _please, oh please_ ), that Victor will be prepared. Well supplied. Sherlock certainly would be, if he were hosting. It's only polite. Still, he doesn't want to seem overeager.

He wonders when it was, exactly, that he became so concerned with condom etiquette.

Being stuck in the countryside, full of lust and without everything they'll need, is too terrible a prospect. He slips the paper bag into his suitcase, resolved not to mention it if Victor has sufficient supplies. ( _Oh, we're out of lube? Let me see what I can do about that_.)

He giggles. He's losing his mind.

In the morning, his parents bundle him into the car for a bumpy ride to the station, and out of it again, onto the train platform. His mother chatters at him, reminding him to be polite. ( _Don't worry Mummy, I've got all my bases covered, Debrett's is asking me to write an entry on packing condoms and lube Just in Case._ )

Despite his lack of reply, she keeps talking. "Don't forget to thank Mr. Trevor for having you."

He begins to stutter, stuck on the phrase "having you," and realises she's talking about Victor's father, not Victor.

"I will." The quickest route to making her stop.

"Good." She plants a kiss on his cheek, and rubs at the lipstick trace she leaves behind, her expression wistful.

His father looks at him for an embarrassingly long while before he sticks out his hand for Sherlock to shake. "You tell Victor he's welcome here any time," he says, as he grips Sherlock's hand so firmly he can't escape. "I mean that. Wouldn't do for him to think we're—inhospitable." He smiles a little too broadly, and all at once, Sherlock gets it.

Daddy knows.

Sherlock blushes from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, fighting to take his hand back. Unacceptable, this, his whole life under scrutiny. Well, the life he wants to have. He hasn't even _done_ anything yet.

"All right," he says, defeated. Daddy smiles and Sherlock swears never to introduce Victor to his parents.

The train ride seems to take a lifetime, the carriage inching through the (dull) countryside at a pace that can't possibly get them where they need to go. At the same time, it seems too fast, hurtling him into an unknown future, where Victor will kiss him, or he won't, where they'll finally be together, or they won't.

Where Sherlock will be acceptable, or he won't.

In the mind palace, Sherlock is perfect. He's Victor's beautiful boy. He and Victor have fucked each other a hundred different ways. Sherlock has his favourite positions (on his back, being fucked) and activities (sliding his cock into the back of Victor's throat, taking Victor deep into his) but he has no idea if, in real life, Victor will like these things. He has no idea if, in real life, his body will comply, agree, relax enough to accommodate the real flesh of another person.

He closes his eyes. The train rocks gently as it crawls along the track. Sherlock pictures Victor's face, his laughing eyes, his kind smile.

There's a couple sitting across the aisle from him. They've taken seats opposite each other: _not shagging yet_.

He digs his notebook out of his messenger bag, and flips past the pages and pages of notes he's taken since the summer holidays began, each entry a study of a couple in one stage or another of courtship. He's been trying to answer a question, the only salient question: how do people become lovers?

This man and woman are older than him, but not by much, maybe in their late twenties. He's got sandy blond hair and is moderately handsome; she's very pretty, with a heart-shaped face and dark brown hair. The faint chalk marks on his jacket tell Sherlock he's a school teacher; the unchipped polish on her fingernails and the toner stain on the cuff of her blouse suggest secretary. They know each other well enough to be traveling together on a Saturday, but they're both dressed up in their nice clothes. They were on the train when he got on, so they've come some distance together already. Holiday? Likely. Day trip? Probably, since they are still at the sitting-opposite-each-other phase.

Wait: no. Threads are pulled on the hem of his trousers, and his shoe is scuffed. Otherwise, he's neatly tricked out. He's made an effort. He won't have chosen frayed trousers on purpose.

Conclusion: he's run over himself with a wheeled suitcase. They've stowed it. Fascinating.

They aren't sleeping together yet, but they're going out of town together, overnight. Sherlock shifts in his seat, all attention, trying not to stare at them too openly. Their situation is his, well, almost. Sort of.

He watches as the secretary leans toward the teacher, brushing the tips of her fingers over his wrist. She's taking his pulse. Why would she do that? No. Not pulse taking. She's simply feeling the warmth of his skin. They smile, touch feet.

Sherlock wonders how they arranged this trip. _Want to go on holiday this weekend? How do you feel about a short trip and a long shag?_ He snorts. The woman glances over at him, smiles a bit.

It's still a mystery. Maybe it is to them as well. He flips through the notebook again, and sighs. He puts his pen away. All this data, and it's ultimately of no use. He and Victor are themselves, and no one else.

He watches the world go by outside the window. The day is overcast, the sky a dull grey, the fields the pale green and gold of early summer. He checks his watch. The train will be in Diss in forty minutes. He's too warm in his jumper. He peels it off and bunches it in his lap.

His knee bounces. He eyes the couple again. They look all right, perfectly calm. Why are they not combusting? How do people pass through this particular gauntlet and survive?

He aches to drop down into his mind palace, to seek comfort with the version of Victor he keeps in the room with the red door handle, but he doesn't dare. He lacks self-control, generally, and moreso now. He imagines moaning in his seat, the gentle back and forth sway of the train rocking him toward a climax.

Filthy.

God, he only hopes he's filthy enough.

The couple across the aisle smile and joke and laugh. Easy.

Nothing has ever been easy for Sherlock.

***

Finally the train stops at Diss. Sherlock retrieves his suitcase and slings the messenger bag across his shoulders. His stomach is crawling with butterflies. Too much. It's all too much.

When he emerges from the train, Victor is standing on the platform, grinning as broadly as he can, eyes lit from within.

"Sherlock Holmes!" he yells at top volume, even though  Sherlock is a mere ten feet away. A couple of people turn to stare at him, and he panics, imagining what they see, the skinny boy in his soft blue jeans and green t-shirt, his hair wild from the trip, his scarf, Cambridge rugby blue, wrapped three times around his neck, his jumper stuffed into his messenger bag.

Victor closes the gap between them, wraps Sherlock in his arms, and lifts him off his feet. Sherlock laughs, shocked and delirious, his happiness exploding from deep within. He can't move his arms; they're trapped at his sides. Otherwise, he would be holding Victor just as fiercely.

Victor grasps him by the shoulders and holds him back, his eyes running over Sherlock as if he's starving and Sherlock is the only food he's seen in weeks.

Sherlock smiles and looks down. If Victor doesn't stop touching him, he's afraid he'll develop a very obvious erection. He glances at the other people on the platform, all of whom are staring now.

"Don't mind them," Victor says. "No matter how many times I come to town, it's still as if I'm the only black man they've ever seen. Not sure why it's so confusing. They even have us on telly from time to time these days." He raises his voice as he says the last part.

Sherlock snickers. 

"You're well?" Victor asks, gathering Sherlock's suitcase and lifting his messenger bag up over his head. "You look tired."

"Fine," Sherlock mumbles.

He doesn't want to hold a conversation with Victor out here, in public. He's dying for the moment they can be in the car together, and talk frankly, and get to some room, any room, or pull over to the side of the road, and kiss, finally kiss, and put their actual hands on each other.  

Victor smiles softly, glancing at his face once more. "This way," he says, lifting Sherlock's suitcase down a set of stairs that lead to a car park.

Diss is a smallish town. The car park is mostly empty, not many travelers on a summer Saturday. Victor takes them to a red Fiat Coupe, and loads Sherlock's things into the boot.

Zeus is sitting in the front passenger seat, his brown eyes just barely visible above the bottom edge of the window, watching people walk past the car. When Sherlock opens the door, Zeus lowers his head, puts his ears back, sneezes, and huffs, his tail wagging violently.

"Hello." Sherlock goes down on his knees on the gravel as Zeus pushes his wet nose into his hands, then leans in so Zeus can sniff his neck and hair. Zeus licks his face, snuffling his cheek and his ear. Sherlock scratches Zeus's bottom, and Zeus flips onto his back, whole body wriggling.

"There," Victor says, laughing. "I told you he was coming." He winks at Sherlock. "He didn't believe me. I almost don't believe it myself."

Victor shifts Zeus to the back seat, and they're ready to go. They turn onto a narrow road, shadowed by tall trees. The only sound is the whir of the engine and the whoosh of air coming in through the two-inch gap at the top of the passenger side window. The car isn't roomy. Victor's hand, resting on the gear shift, is inches away from Sherlock's elbow.

Sherlock longs for Victor to close the space between them, to slide a hand onto his knee, anything. He thinks he might die, waiting for Victor to make the first move. In the mind palace, it's always so easy.

"Ever driven a car, sweetheart?"

"No."

"Maybe you want to learn, hm?"

Victor's tone is smooth, like warm honey. Sherlock has forgotten how powerful it can be. He oozes further down into his seat. "All right." His voice is thick in his throat.

Victor downshifts and slows to a stop. Through the open window, Sherlock hears a robin singing. A pheasant crosses the road ahead of them, taking her time, eyeing the car defiantly.

"The dad is gone away on business," Victor says, casually. "So you won't get to meet him until next week. We'll have the place to ourselves in the meantime."

Sherlock nods, overwhelmed by the fresh information. He's been nervous about meeting Victor's father. He impresses so few people, and he wants Mr. Trevor to like him. A week is wonderful, long enough to get his bearings, decide what to do, and—

He shifts in his seat. A week alone with Victor. Understanding hits his heart and groin simultaneously. He's dying to speak, to say something clever. Nothing comes out.

The rest of the car ride is silent. They pull into a gated laneway, driving across the estate until they reach a circular drive in front of the house. It's just as huge as Victor has said it is, two large Victorian-era wings attached to a core two-storey structure built in the seventeenth century. A man in jeans and a plaid shirt emerges from an outbuilding to come greet them, as Victor lifts Sherlock's suitcase from the boot.

"Sherlock Holmes, this is Alcott, our caretaker."

Sherlock nods at the man, who takes Victor's car keys, and asks if he needs anything else as Zeus jumps down from the back seat.

"I think we'll manage on our own," Victor says. He winks at Sherlock.

Such a small thing, but it makes Sherlock ready to stumble over his own feet. He manages to control his limbs sufficiently to follow Victor through a long passageway, Zeus leading the way, up a set of stairs, and down a corridor, to a room with an ornate wooden door.

It isn't quite the mind palace, but it's got the same grand scale and the same dark tones. Sherlock feels at home and totally disoriented at the same time.

"This will be your room, while you're here," Victor says, his voice hushed. There isn't another living soul in this hallway, as far as Sherlock can tell, but this feels like an exchange that needs to be kept private. Victor reaches around Sherlock to open the door, his forearm brushing Sherlock's hip.

The room is huge, with a large sleigh bed, a wall full of windows overlooking the woods that stretch away from the back of the house, and a generous fireplace, two chairs of the large and squishy variety placed in front of it. Sherlock's brain stutters to a halt as he looks at the chairs. They're generous enough to fit two people each.

Victor is watching him. "Do you like it?"

He loves it. "It's fine."

Victor swings the suitcase onto a luggage rack and shows Sherlock the wardrobe and the dresser, as Zeus hops onto one of the chairs, turns around three times, and lies down.

"I'll expect you'll want time to unpack your things."

Sherlock couldn't care less about unpacking his things, but he supposes that's what he should do.

The room has two doors leading from it, in addition to the door to the hallway. Victor opens one. Behind it is a small private bath, toilet and sink and an old cast iron tub with modern fixtures.

Sherlock nods and looks at the other door, raising an eyebrow. Victor clears his throat.

"I hope you don't mind, but this room adjoins mine. Come and see if you want."

Sherlock's heart pounds in his chest. "All right."

The door opens directly into Victor's bedroom, the twin to Sherlock's guest room, but much more lived in. There's a single ancient armchair by the fireplace, paired with a generous ottoman, like the one in Victor's room at school. A huge desk, crammed with books and papers and at least three half-built model airplanes, occupies the space under the bank of windows. The bed has been hastily made, the worn blankets pulled up haphazardly. Victor slept late, or took a nap before he came to pick up Sherlock, evidence that he had trouble sleeping last night too.

The room smells just like him. Sherlock closes his eyes and takes it in, the scent of clean soap, a hint of menthol and eucalyptus from the muscle ointment Victor favours, and the comforting musk of athletic man.

"You all right?" Victor says.

Sherlock's eyes flutter open. He is certain, totally certain, that everything he feels is written all over his face. He wars with himself briefly, before he breaks altogether, his ability to speak unravelling.

"I—"

Victor is looking at him so gently, his eyebrows raised, his smile broken. No one has ever treated Sherlock so well.

"Spend as much time in here as you want," Victor says. "I mean that." He tips his head toward the guest room. "That's for you if you feel like you want your own space. But you're welcome in here, too."

Sherlock presses his lips together. He does want to spend time with Victor. He does want to be here, in Victor's room. He never wants to leave. The strain of not shouting these facts into Victor's face is crushing him. He's aware that he's wearing a look that suggests he's in pain. He is, in fact, in pain.

He opens his mouth to speak, but only sighs heavily. Stupid.

Victor glances at his watch, blinking hard. "Shall we take a turn through the grounds? I'll leave you to sort yourself out. Meet downstairs in an hour?"

They've been here, in this room, for less than ten minutes, and Sherlock has already cocked it up. Victor doesn't want him. Victor might have wanted him, if he weren't so stupid, so tongue tied, so eager, so raw.

He nods, and tries to smile. "Okay."

"Okay, then. I'll leave you to it. Take some time. Unpack. Settle in."

Sherlock manages to say _okay_ one more time.

Nothing is okay. Nothing will ever be okay again.  

He fumbles his way through unpacking, tossing cotton t-shirts and jeans into dresser drawers, hanging up a few items. He imagined, when he packed his best suit, that Victor might want to take him out one night, show off a bit with a trip to Norwich. Now that he's here, he is quite convinced that everything he imagined is pure idiocy. Still, he does look and feel his best in that suit. Perhaps he'll wear it one night, to amuse himself.

He assembles hair products in the bathroom, sets out his toothpaste and toothbrush, deodorant and the aftershave he paid far too much for. He hides the paper bag with the condoms and lube under the sink, shuddering to think how wrong he was about the need for them.

He fully expected that they would be snogging by now. He certainly wouldn't say no, if Victor had tried. He can't believe Victor hasn't tried.

The clock tells him he's used all of twelve minutes. Forty-eight minutes to go before Victor will meet him downstairs. He takes a shower. Out of curiosity he uses the bar of soap in the holder. Coriander and sage. It looks handmade. Someone's country hobby. It smells wonderful, totally unfamiliar, unexpected. The steam rises all around him and he inhales, wishing himself into oblivion.

As he towels himself dry, he wonders what it would take to erase the room with the red door handle. It has become his and Victor's. He can't imagine ever placing anyone else in it. And it's clear—more than it has ever been—that he and Victor are just friends.

There's a gap between them. It can't be closed. No matter how friendly Victor is, if he hasn't broken down and kissed Sherlock by now, it won't happen. Obvious.

Friends it is, then.

Once he's dressed again, Sherlock stuffs his empty suitcase into the wardrobe. The door to Victor's bedroom is still open. He stares at the gap as he puts on his shoes. He decides to leave it.

Hope springs eternal, even when it probably shouldn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Debrett's Handbook is a nearly 500-page etiquette guide from the same people who publish Debrett's People of Today, a sort of Who's Who. I'm not sure if it has advice on correct condom procedures, but somehow I doubt it. In Doyle's stories, Holmes consults Debrett's Peerage [Ye Olde Who's Who] from time to time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing... It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different."
> 
> ~The Boscombe Valley Mystery

When Sherlock finally gathers the courage to go downstairs, Victor is waiting for him in the main hallway. He's wearing a small backpack, tiny on his large frame. Zeus, he informs Sherlock, has chosen to nap instead of joining them.

"Getting old. He'll be taking a pension soon."

Sherlock tries to smile. It's never occurred to him that Zeus might not be as immortal as the god he's named for, although he should know better. An impression of warm fur skirls across his fingertips. If he closes his eyes, he'll see the colour red. He chews his lower lip.

"Ready?" Victor glances at Sherlock's face, then looks away.

"Yes."

Sherlock is aware that he's made things terribly awkward, that _he_ is terribly awkward.

They walk away from the house, following a stream that runs behind it and into the property beyond. Sherlock maintains his silence, afraid to make things worse.

Victor points out the barn where they used to keep horses. A pair of white goats eyes them from the paddock.

"I never liked riding much, and the dad never took to the horses. These gentlemen, on the other hand, he loves. Mean little shits, until you get to know them."

Victor stops to say hello to the goats, cupping their chins in his hands, and scratching behind their ears. They crane their necks to meet his touch, their long ears dangling. Sherlock envies them.

Everything opens up under Victor's warm attentions, even the most curmudgeonly of creatures. He's so obviously kind. It's his lowest common denominator, this default sweetness.

Sherlock feels the world dropping out from underneath his feet. He's more besotted than he's ever been, even as he sees that Victor's affection for him isn't really personal. It's just Victor being who he is.

They walk on, and pause under a towering white oak. "I used to spend all summer right here, under this tree," Victor tells Sherlock. "There's clay in the stream bed. Endless fun." He points upstream. "If you walk along the water, it leads to the lake. Shall we go?"

"All right."

They pass a folly on the edge of a meadow. Victor explains that it was built in the 1760s, by an (insane) younger son. "No inheritance, but he found a way to spend the family's money anyway."

The folly looks like a Roman ruin, all Corinthian columns and arches, crumbling on three sides. Sherlock likes it immediately, but he's always seen the romance in ruined things. He understands the mentality behind the folly all too well. Time and the world tear everything down, in the end. There's an honesty to making it ruined in the first place.

"The dad never understood why the English would keep a wreck like this on their land," Victor says, as if reading his thoughts. "I had a terrible time explaining they built it that way! He wanted to knock it down. The historical society would have had his head on a plate. Can you imagine?"

Sherlock smiles at that. In the cool depths of the Victorian wing of the mind palace, something stirs: a story he read about a rash of beheadings in Langmere, between 1898 and 1901. Authorities never caught anyone. ( _Incompetent_.) The evidence suggested that the murderer used a very sharp scythe.

The case calls to him, and he wants to follow it all the way down. He knows it's a flimsy excuse to get away from the unbearable present, this situation that he's looked forward to with everything he's got, and which, simultaneously, is not at all what he was hoping for.

It would be too easy to close his eyes and slip away, to seek what he wants where he always gets it. He looks at the columns of the folly, green with moss and ivy, until the impressions fade.

He thinks about Victor's father, and finds himself admiring his staunch practicality. Mr. Trevor is, by all accounts, a self-made man, with real experience in the world. Sherlock respects anyone clever enough to start from nothing and make something new, although he has no idea what, precisely, Mr. Trevor does. He imagines that Victor's father would face facts, and deal with whatever was right in front of him.

The sun emerges from behind a cloud long enough to kiss Victor's face. He glows, his eyes shining as he smiles at Sherlock. "Imagine me at age ten. I got to be a proper Roman soldier, shield and sword and cape and all, standing among the columns. The sword was a stick and the cape was a towel, and the shield a dust bin lid, but still." He nudges Sherlock with his elbow. "An exclusive look into my personal history, sweetheart."

Sherlock tries not to swoon, immediately drawn back into a torrent of emotion. "I'm honoured," he manages to say.

Victor picks up the pace as they approach the lake. They walk out onto a long dock that extends over the water. At the end is a covered landing of sorts, with a bench and table to sit at. A rickety ladder leads down into the black depths.

"We'll swim here, another day, if the weather's good," Victor says, squinting at the sky. It's clearer than it was earlier, but piles of white clouds are building on the horizon. "Maybe tonight? If the stars are out, we have to." He smiles at something, a private joke, maybe.

Sherlock stands at the edge by the ladder and stares at the water, his hand rubbing the aged grey wood of the railing. This is the conversation from Victor's room at school, with all its promise of something more. Still, it can't mean what Sherlock thought it did. 

Victor sits at the table, opens the backpack, and pulls out a thermos and a pair of tin cups. He pours milk from a small bottle, adding sugar from a repurposed jam jar, and tea from the thermos.

"Thank you," Sherlock says, accepting a cup. He eyes the other things Victor unpacks: a container of what appear to be homemade biscuits; another filled with bright red cherries.

Victor points to a spot on the bench beside him. "Sit."

Sherlock sits.

Victor takes a biscuit, but Sherlock shakes his head when he offers him one. He can barely raise his cup to his mouth without his shaking hands giving him away. He doesn't think he can manage to eat.

"Skipped breakfast, didn't you?"

Sherlock shrugs. "I left early."

"I thought so. Here."

Victor holds out the container of cherries.

"No, thanks."

Victor plucks a cherry from the container and holds it up to the light. "These are really very good," he says, popping it into his mouth and rolling it on his tongue. He shows it to Sherlock, held between his white teeth, before he bites down on it. "You should try one, sweetheart."

Sherlock blinks hard at the wooden planks beneath his feet. His heart pounds. He definitely can't eat anything now. It isn't fair, all this flirting, none of it going anywhere. He tries not to take it personally, and fails.

Victor takes another cherry from the container, holding it between his thumb and forefinger for Sherlock to see. "Please?"

There's so much mischief, so much joy, in Victor's voice, that Sherlock can't help but look up at his face. There he is, Sherlock's favourite person in the whole world, smiling at him, asking him to do this one small thing, just a little thing. And it's nice, it's genuinely nice, because Victor is nice, and he cares.  

Sherlock is aware that he turns down opportunities for happiness. He's no better than a curmudgeonly goat, and he knows it.

He takes the cherry. It's firm against his tongue; it bursts with tart juice when he bites it. He takes another, then several more, palming the pits into a paper napkin. His stomach rumbles audibly.

Suddenly Sherlock feels a hundred times better. He takes a biscuit—they're shortbread, filled with raspberry jam—and chases it with tea, then has another.

His mind clears. Victor smiles into his cup.

A pair of ducks takes off from the edge of the lake, making plaintive cries. Sherlock looks up at the sky. It's clear and blue again, a few white clouds moving slowly across it.

Victor is just Victor. He's generous and kind, and he's Sherlock's friend, and Sherlock is his, just Victor's, whatever Victor wants him to be. He's suddenly, gut-wrenchingly grateful for that.

"Do you think it will be clear tonight?" he says. The thread of the earlier conversation has been dropped, but maybe, if he's lucky, he can pick it up again. "Clear enough to see the stars?"

Victor shrugs, and smiles at him. "If it's not, there will be another time. We have a whole month ahead of us."

***

After a leisurely supper that they take in the formal dining room (roast chicken, potatoes, green beans, wine, more wine, brandy), the sky opens up, and it starts pouring rain. Lightning flashes, and buckets of water teem down from the sky. Sherlock and Victor prop open the French doors. They stand together, and watch as the rain smacks down and bounces off the red bricks of an outdoor terrace.

The table has been cleared, except for their brandy snifters, and the house staff have gone to bed.

In the corner of the room, Zeus cracks open an eye and pretends to go back to sleep. He has already refused to go outside. Sherlock doesn't blame him.

Thunder cracks, loud enough to shake the glass. Victor looks at Sherlock, drunk merriment dancing in his eyes, and they both burst out laughing.

"No swimming tonight, sweetheart," Victor murmurs.

He squeezes Sherlock's arm, a companionable gesture. Sherlock is drunk enough that he accepts it, accepts this in-between place in which he finds himself. Companion and guest. Friend and something else. Classmate and _sweetheart_. His head is swimming from the brandy, his joints loose. He leans into Victor, finding Victor's height and solidity a powerful comfort. Victor puts his arm around Sherlock's shoulders.

He kisses Sherlock on the temple, and sighs into Sherlock's hair.

Sherlock freezes, his whole body stiffening under Victor's touch. Victor's hand slides down off Sherlock's shoulder, and is gone. When Sherlock manages to look at Victor out of the corner of his eye, Victor is clasping his hands behind his back. Holding himself back, then. But why? Why?

It isn't fair.

Sherlock searches out his glass on the dining room table. He's still got two fingers of brandy left. He drains it in one go, and ends up coughing.

Victor is watching him. His eyebrows lift and Sherlock wants to tell him to stop it, to stop being so handsome, to stop being patient with him. He wonders, wildly, if he were to simply demand that Victor kiss him, if he were to simply take what he wants, if that would work.

As it is, his body is beyond his control. He leans up against the back of a dining room chair, the frame digging painfully into his lower back. He can't move.

Victor pulls the French doors shut.

"Come and play a game," he says, his head tilting. He turns and leaves the room.

Sherlock follows, absolutely numb and terrified. He's wound so tight, he has no control over his limbs. He jerks down the hallway in the clumsiest fashion, grateful only that Victor isn't watching. Zeus, who has decided to follow them, looks up at Sherlock, his expression full of canine concern.

 _I know_ , Sherlock wants to tell him. _I'm an idiot_.

Except he isn't. He knows the signs. He's watched other couples so carefully, the last few weeks, watched how they flirt, how they talk to each other.

Victor's lips on his temple, so soft, so sure.

He wants to scream. _What else could it mean?_ Instead he follows, pitiful.

Victor leads them into a room equipped with a snooker table and a dart board. He takes a cue down from the wall, chalks the tip, and hands it to Sherlock. "You break," he says, taking the triangular rack off the red balls arranged on the table.

Sherlock doesn't really know the rules. He's competitive enough to want to win, though. He asks a few strategic questions. Victor answers, all practicality.

The game gives him focus. They play the first few rounds in silence. Sherlock relaxes a little, almost enjoying himself.

Before he knows it, something shifts. He and Victor circle the table, passing each other, chest to chest, hip brushing hip, unnecessarily close. Victor bends over to find the best angle for a shot as Sherlock stands back and watches. Before he lines up his cue, Victor looks back over his shoulder and winks. The intention couldn't be more clear. _Feast your eyes on me_.

Sherlock suppresses a giggle. Victor is relentless, ridiculous. The best. He opens the two top buttons on his shirt after he makes a particularly difficult shot. "I'm too damn hot, sweetheart," he says, fanning himself.

No one can make Sherlock laugh like Victor does. No one has ever tried.

Sherlock wins the game as Victor cheers him on. "Clever," he says, shaking his head as Sherlock finishes the table.

"I think you let me win on purpose."  

"Well, that would be smart of me." Victor takes a seat on a worn leather sofa in the corner of the room. "Trying to butter you up. I want you to be happy here."

Sherlock sighs. Victor watches him, his customary smile fading into something strained.

"I am," Sherlock says. "I am happy."

Victor nods. "Good. I just—I always want you to be happy. You know that, don't you?"

The air goes out of the room. Suddenly they're talking about something else altogether.

Sherlock nods.

Victor's voice is thick with some emotion that Sherlock doesn't dare place or name. "If I thought that anything I did made you sad or uncomfortable, it would be terrible for me. You know that, don't you?"

"Yes." He doesn't trust himself to say more.

Everything about the whole situation makes him uncomfortable, and there's no way to explain that. He's uncomfortable in his desire and uncomfortable in his hope. He's sad because Victor isn't touching him right now, and he's terrified that if he does, it will all go wrong, and end before it's begun.

"You can tell me," Victor says. "If you don't want—it's okay. I'll understand."

Sherlock is breathing hard, unable to believe what he's hearing. _Is this it? Is this how it happens?_ "No," he says. And ( _uselessly_ ): "No."

Balance of probability. All these hesitations, these false stops and starts, can't be Victor's fault. Victor is perfect. Victor calls him _sweetheart_ and Victor feeds him up and Victor has kissed him three times: once on the cheek, once on the hand, and once on the temple.

The fault is with himself. Victor isn't holding him right now because of Sherlock, because of the way he always freezes.

"I want to ask you to come over here, but I'm not sure it's what you want," Victor says.

Sherlock is still holding his snooker cue. He lets it fall to the floor. It clanks, sounding incredibly loud. The room is otherwise silent. The rain stopped a long time ago. He sighs raggedly. This is it. This is the moment. He starts to say something smart: _why wouldn't I want to come over there?_ —not very smart, not very clever, just off-putting. He thinks better of it and decides to try to walk.

Victor's eyes are shining like lamps in his broad, generous face, a slow grin lifting the corners of his mouth. ( _His lips, so smooth, so soft._ ) No man has ever seen the beauty in another the way Sherlock sees Victor's right now.

Somehow he makes it to the sofa, and sits down. In an unprecedented act of boldness, he leaves no space between them. He turns, his knee pressing into the solid muscle of Victor's thigh, so they are facing each other. Victor's arm is resting on the back of the sofa, practically cradling Sherlock. He's so much bigger than Sherlock, a bit taller, yes, but so much more broad in his frame, substantial. Victor could easily pick him up and carry him, and Sherlock wonders if that wouldn't be for the best.

Victor smiles, and slips his arm around Sherlock's shoulders. He draws Sherlock in, and Sherlock isn't ready for a kiss, not yet, so he buries his face in Victor's chest. Victor strokes the back of his head, carding his fingers through Sherlock's hair, crooning.

"You don't know how wonderful you are. You truly don't."

"I'm not," Sherlock sighs, into Victor's shoulder.

"No. No, no. You're wrong."

The talk is turning to total nonsense now, and hysterically, Sherlock thinks, _Oh. This is how it happens. First the gibberish, then the kissing._

He lifts his face to ask if he's right, if gibberish inevitably leads to kissing, and finds that Victor has already leaned in, and Victor's lips touch Sherlock's, brushing them lightly.

Sherlock whimpers. The sound is high-pitched and unbecoming and he wants to apologise, to ask for a do-over, but Victor groans in response and pulls him closer, kisses him more fervently. Their lips are closed, but they press together for longer and longer moments. Victor's breath mingles with Sherlock's, his hands move down to Sherlock's hips, his mouth parts under Sherlock's kiss, and they're tilting as Victor leans back, pulling Sherlock down on top of him.

Sherlock props himself up on Victor's chest so he can continue to kiss Victor's mouth. He mimics what Victor is doing, opening his lips a little, tasting him, the warmth of him on his lips.

He's kissed Victor so many times, passionately, with filthy abandon, in the mind palace, but none of that, as vivid as it seemed, as real as it felt, compares to the sensation of having all of Victor under him, shifting and writhing and full of breathy moans, his strong hands passing over Sherlock's back, moving lower, resting on the tops of his buttocks.

He's hard as hell, they both are, grinding through their trousers. Sherlock seeks more friction, pressing down into Victor with his groin as their lips meet and press and slide. He's riding Victor, and Victor shifts under him, his hands holding Sherlock still now, his face turning away.

"Easy," Victor says. He smiles, smoothing Sherlock's hair back with his fingers.

Sherlock is panting, his whole body screaming for more contact, more pressure, fewer clothes, more of Victor's mouth on his, less of this stopping and talking nonsense. He loves Victor, though, so he stops, he waits.

"We don't want to go too fast, sweetheart," Victor tells him.

"Don't we?" Sherlock wants to go faster. He wants to break the sound barrier. He wants to exceed the speed of light.

Victor tilts his head back and laughs, his belly shaking. The expanse of his neck, with its exquisite skin, so finely textured over his sinew and muscle, is too inviting. Sherlock bends to kiss it, sucking hard.

Victor moans. It's so raw, so real, it makes Sherlock squirm on top of him.

"How long, sweetheart?"

"Hm?"

"How long have you wanted this?"

Sherlock blinks into Victor's face, looks at his round chin, his generous cheekbones, his heavy-lidded eyes. "Since Zeus bit me, and you cared." Sudden emotion floods him, the full weight of his longing and pining and need for this moving over him and through him.

Victor smiles. "So long."

"Why, how long have you?"

"Well. Since the beginning, I think. But you must know, I thought it was the silliest crush. This boy, I thought, he's something really different. He doesn't feel things the way most people do." Victor runs his hands through Sherlock's hair, rubbing his scalp. "I thought you would never—"

"But you had to know. You did. The way you talked to me."

"I couldn't help myself. I wanted you to at least know that I liked you. I—more than liked you."

Sherlock blinks and looks down at Victor's chest. In all of this, he's never really considered Victor's feelings, because Victor is perfect, Victor seems so self-assured, so solid. He's only thought of himself, and all the ways that he wants, and all the ways he might be denied. He's never once considered that Victor might be feeling the same pain.

"I do," he says. "I do feel things." He sits up, pushing his hands into Victor's chest to raise himself. Victor follows, and Sherlock ends up with his legs flung across Victor's, the two of them sitting facing each other, leaning into the back of the sofa. Their fingers tangle and even just that small contact is enough to make Sherlock's body tingle, to make everything hum.

"There are worlds inside you, Sherlock Holmes," Victor tells him, rubbing Sherlock's hands. "You see more than anyone. How could I think you noticed me? Or would give me more than a moment's thought?"

Sherlock looks into Victor's eyes, wondering how he knows, how he sees, and for a moment, he is utterly flayed, completely vulnerable. Victor is the only one who's ever known him, the only one who can.

His heart is full, and his body restless. He wants to unbutton Victor's shirt, to take whatever Victor will give him. He's needy and aching for more, and he doesn't have a clue how to ask for what he wants. He breathes hard, on the verge of sobbing.

"Hush," Victor says, kissing his lips. They're tender and swollen already, his face chafed by the hint of stubble on Victor's cheeks and chin. And they've only just begun. "We have all the time in the world."

It sounds like the beginning of the end of the evening. Sherlock shakes his head.

Victor laughs. "We do, though, a whole month now and then the school year ahead of us. So much time. Maybe we should go to bed, yeah?"

Sherlock thrills. This is it, the moment he's been waiting for. Him and Victor, under covers, no clothes, together, skin to skin, prick to prick—

"We don't have to do more right now. You sleep in your room tonight. I don't want to rush you."

Everything in Sherlock's body rebels against Victor's words, his temper rises, and he doesn't know how, but he's on his feet, he's pacing, his hands are pressed to the sides of his head as if it's going to explode. He's aware of the absolutely raging erection he's got, sure it's obvious to Victor. If that's not enough to convince Victor that he's wrong, so wrong, that Sherlock can't be rushed because this whole thing is taking far, far too long, then perhaps a few choice words will do.

"Victor Trevor!" He's yelling. He doesn't care. "I have waited for you for a lifetime. Do you understand? You flirted. You invited me here. You kissed me. You touched me. And now you're telling me to slow down? You're telling me to sleep apart from you?"

"Sherlock—"

"No! Enough!" Sherlock tugs at his shirt, pulling the tails out of his trousers. A button pops off the shirt and pings into the corner. "If you don't take me somewhere private and get me out of these clothes, I will leave. I will walk all the way home."

He stares at Victor, defiant, furious. He loves Victor and he hates him, in this moment, for denying him what they are so close to having.

Victor's eyes are wide. He's staring at Sherlock. His face breaks into a grin, and he's laughing again, the booming, throaty laugh he reserves for Sherlock's most pithy observations.

He stands and scoops Sherlock into his arms, picks him up and spins him on the spot. He lands Sherlock on his feet and touches his face and kisses him. This time, his lips part and he slides his tongue into Sherlock's open mouth. Victor tastes sweet and smoky, rich and warm and wet. He towers over Sherlock, who hangs onto Victor's shoulders for dear life and tilts back to keep contact with Victor's kiss.

Victor pulls away and grabs Sherlock's hand and they're walking for the door, they're leaving the games room and running for the stairs. Running—wordless and breathless—they take the stairs two at a time and crash down the long hallway that leads to their rooms.

They don't bother dithering about where they're going to go; Victor bangs open the door of his own room and pulls Sherlock in and kisses him, his lips firm and sure against Sherlock's, coaxing out Sherlock's tongue. Once he's tasted Victor, Sherlock can't stop. He licks into Victor's mouth, then thrusts his tongue as far as it will go. Victor moans and slides his tongue against Sherlock's, meeting his greedy exploration and matching the movements, stroke for stroke.

Now Victor's hands are at Sherlock's shirt, and he's unbuttoning it, pulling it open, and Sherlock is doing the same, and there's a sound coming from the back of Sherlock's own throat, a growl of frustration and need. Clothing is never a problem in the mind palace. It simply disappears. Undressing each other is nonsense, inefficient, Sherlock decides, abandoning the button on Victor's trousers in favour of stripping off his own. He's so whip thin he doesn't really need to unzip anything; he just sucks in his gut and pulls it all down, trousers, pants, and socks off in one smooth movement, shirt gone in the next.

Victor stops, his trousers half open, his shirt slipping down off one shoulder. "Oh." He's staring at Sherlock's naked body. His hands move to Sherlock's hips, gripping him firmly, unabashedly watching Sherlock's cock, hard and flushed and leaking.

Victor pulls Sherlock in by the hips, just enough so that the tip of Sherlock's cock brushes the front of Victor's trousers, the hint of contact setting Sherlock to gasping again.

"Yes," Victor says. "Oh my God, yes, that's it." He toys with Sherlock, moving his hips side to side, making his cock slide over the taut fabric of his own trousers.

Sherlock moans noisily, gasping for breath with each move Victor makes. Victor walks him over to the bed, pushing him until the mattress bumps up against the back of Sherlock's thighs.

"Lie down," Victor says. "Let me look at you."

Sherlock does, scrambling so he can recline against the pillows and watch as Victor takes off his shirt, smiling down at him. Sherlock sighs, a huge, breathy inhale and a ragged exhale, as Victor opens his trousers and takes them off. Everything about Victor is powerful, his bulky muscles shifting under his skin, but he moves slowly, so gentle. His cock is dark and hard and so perfectly shaped. Sherlock knows it will feel heavy in his hand. It will fill his mouth, fill him.

His eyes flutter back in his head and he has to look at the ceiling for a moment, clear his mind. He's been practicing coming untouched for all these months, and he knows he will, right now, if he allows himself to be overwhelmed with anticipation.

Victor sits down on the bed beside him. Sherlock shifts over to make room, and holds out his arms, and Victor lies down next to him. They're kissing again, their bodies coming together from mouth to chest to knees to toes, their pricks sliding into alignment between them, and it's wonderful, it's everything, so much of Sherlock touching Victor all at once, like slipping into a warm bath.

Victor kicks his hips a little, and a sharp jolt of friction hits Sherlock's cock, and he gasps and thrusts his hips in response, wanting more, wanting that, again, and again.

"Wait," Victor says, reaching behind him to his nightstand. He grabs at a bottle of something or other, sits it on Sherlock's hip, then pushes down on it twice.

"Is that hand lotion?" Sherlock shakes his head as Victor rubs his hands together, coating them in something distinctly lavender-scented. He thinks about the lube tucked away in the bathroom cupboard. _Let me get something more appropriate, wink wink_. He imagines what it would take to actually stand up and walk across the room. _To hell with that_.

"You won't complain when you see how it feels, sweetheart," Victor laughs, and lowers his hand between them.

_Oh._

The lotion, warmed by Victor's hand, is slick on Sherlock's cock. Victor smoothes some over himself, too, then wraps his hand around both of them and shifts his hips, sliding his cock over Sherlock's.

It's exactly what Sherlock wants, what he needs, the warm slippery hardness of Victor's prick and hand, a place to thrust into. He wraps his arm around Victor's shoulders and draws him closer, pulling Victor half down on top of him. Victor's weight presses him into the bed, anchoring him, and Victor speeds the motion of his hand as he props himself on his elbow and groans.

They stay like that, shifting and gasping, until they fall into a rhythm together. Victor's hand is moving faster, Sherlock urging him on with filthy, guttural noises he's making in the back of his throat, each groan a revelation. He realises he's never made much noise before, his real voice unused whenever he's in the mind palace, his climaxes quiet, strained, restrained.

He moans now and urges Victor on. Victor is holding himself above Sherlock, stroking the both of them as fast and hard as he can, while Sherlock thrusts into his hand, his prick aching with his impending orgasm, his moans turning into a shout, each push into Victor's palm pulling sound from his throat. He's so close, not quite there yet, but closer and closer, gripping Victor hard, his fingers digging into the skin of Victor's back, his leg wrapping around Victor's calf and pulling them tighter and tighter together.

His orgasm tears through him, catastrophically. He sobs and gasps his way through it, his mind utterly blank, nothing but the feeling of himself spilling into Victor's palm as Victor groans and comes, their release blending together and soaking both of their bellies as they soften and sigh together. All he has in the world is Victor to hang onto, and he does, pulling Victor down. For a moment he can't breathe with Victor's full weight on him, but he doesn't mind. It's a good way to die, he decides, a fine way to go. He needs Victor on top of him; he needs to feel how solid Victor is, how real.

Finally, for once, he isn't blinking himself awake on his solitary bed. He's tangled in Victor's arms, he's held and cherished and soaked with sweat and a little bit chilled. Victor reaches down and pulls a blanket up over them, kissing Sherlock's cheek, his lips. The room smells like lavender hand cream and the pale bleachy scent of come and fresh sweat. Sherlock loves it, loves this.

Victor pulls him in, rolls him onto his side, and spoons him, pressing Sherlock's back to his expansive chest, holding Sherlock to him. Precious. Sherlock feels precious and adored, because he is, at least to Victor, by Victor.

"Should we shower?" Sherlock asks. He doesn't know what should come next. He couldn't bear it if he didn't get it right.

"In a bit," Victor says. "Not right now. Just stay with me. Just rest."

Sherlock closes his eyes. Victor's right. They shouldn't move. They should never move.

Together, they sleep through the rest of the night.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles.
> 
> ~The Man With the Twisted Lip

 

Sherlock wakes up at dawn to the sound of Victor's soft snores. He opens his eyes and watches him, the rounded shape of his shoulders, the rise and fall of his breathing. In the night they've somehow divided the bedding: Sherlock has wrapped the blanket around himself so tightly he can barely move, and Victor is sprawled on his belly under the thin cotton sheet. The sheet clings to Victor's arm, the swell of his arse.

He's solid and real and warm and true. He's here, and Sherlock is here, and it's incredible.

If Sherlock were alone (as he always has been, before), and awake in the early morning hours (likely), he would lie on his back and drop down into his mind palace and—well, be with Victor. Instead he's here, with the man himself.

Being here isn't enough. He needs to be closer. He struggles with the blanket, trying to pull it out from under himself. He rolls, freeing one arm, then the other. He's working on finding the edge of the sheet, so he can lift it up and slide under, when he realises that Victor has long since stopped snoring, and is watching him.

"Hello, sweetheart." His voice is thick with sleep, and rough, and deep.

Sherlock freezes. "I was just—" he knows what he was trying to do, but it seems silly to explain. _Stealthily trying to get to where I could touch you all over_ seems wrong, somehow, or if not wrong, inelegant.

Victor stretches, and yawns. He props himself up on his elbow and rearranges pillows, rolling onto his back so he can recline against them. He lifts the edge of the sheet. "Come here."

Sherlock eagerly tunnels under, and throws his arm over Victor's belly. The press of his skin against Victor's (chest to chest, groin to hip) overwhelms his senses. He inches closer, burying his face in Victor's neck, throwing his leg over Victor's.

( _How is this allowed? How? How?_ )

Victor's fingers are in Sherlock's hair, rubbing his scalp, then drifting downward to trace the line of his spine. Victor kisses the top of his head, and murmurs sweet noises.

Wordlessly, their embrace transforms into something more urgent. Victor's fingers dig into Sherlock's upper arm. He slides lower on the bed and pulls Sherlock up, as if it were nothing, as if Sherlock were weightless. Sherlock braces himself, a hand on either side of Victor's chest, as Victor caresses his face and pulls him down, and they kiss for the first time since last night. Sherlock's lips are raw and sore. He doesn't mind. It's good. It's so good.

Sherlock moans, a soft sound that pours out of his chest, against Victor's mouth. Victor's hands slide down to press into Sherlock's buttocks, kneading the muscle and shifting Sherlock over so the two of them are in alignment, skin against skin, prick to prick, like they were the night before.

Sherlock wants to go fast, but he forces himself to slow down, matching the long, slow strokes of Victor's tongue, the way Victor's lips are firm and artful as they kiss the corner of his mouth. He loses himself in all of it, in the way Victor uses his hands on Sherlock's hips to dictate Sherlock's rhythm, rolling Sherlock against him, too slow to make him catch fire, but constant enough to set him buzzing. His prick fills and fills between them, until it's aching, until he's aching, but he never wants it to stop, the sweetness of it is so much.

A breeze comes through the open window, shifting the curtain and breathing fresh, cold air onto Sherlock's back. He shivers. Victor breaks the kiss to brush Sherlock's hair back from his forehead. In the low light, Victor's eyes are deep pools, dancing with mischief.

"Want to come in my mouth, sweetheart?"

Sherlock blinks down at Victor's throat. He entertains the possibility, briefly, wildly, that Victor is making fun of him, somehow mocking the obvious intensity of his desire. A wave of heat and need rolls up through him, starting in the vicinity of his toes, burning through him until his chest and neck and face are all, no doubt, very red.

"Wuh," he says.

Victor laughs and wriggles under Sherlock, setting him to gasping. He throws a pillow onto the floor. "Sit up." He kisses Sherlock's cheek.

Sherlock complies, boneless and shaking and a bit frightened. "Are you sure?" he manages to say. The idea that anyone would actually want to do what Victor is proposing seems impossible, even though he's imagined doing it to Victor many, many times. And having Victor do it to him.

Victor kisses Sherlock's mouth, a slow thrust of tongue offered as proof. "I want to taste you." He pulls Sherlock over to the edge of the bed, and sets pillows up behind him, to lean back on, if he wants.

Sherlock wants to sit up. He wants to watch.

It isn't the act that Sherlock thinks is so undesirable. He certainly wants to. It's him. The idea that Victor would want him, in that way. "You're sure."

Victor moves to the floor, wrapped in the sheet. He kneels at Sherlock's feet. "Don't you want me to?" He looks up at Sherlock with a combination of adoration and hunger so breathtaking, it dissolves Sherlock's reservations. He nods, aware that his expression is serious.

"Relax," Victor says, running his hands up Sherlock's thighs, kneading the muscle.

The sheet is loosely wrapped around Victor's waist, but as he leans down to kiss Sherlock's inner thigh, it slips, and Sherlock catches a glimpse of Victor's erect prick. Sherlock's mind flutters through a host of ideas about what he would like to do to it, and where he would like it. He imagines it pressing against his perineum, sliding, lubricated, into the crack of his arse, but it's only a ghost of a notion, a brief idea of a sensation, immediately overwhelmed by the warm, wet firmness of Victor's tongue, which presses against the head of Sherlock's cock, and swirls.

It's outrageous, how much Sherlock feels, how each small movement Victor makes draws pleasure through his every nerve. Sherlock gasps and collapses back into the pillows, stunned and writhing. It's too much, and he wants more, and more.

"You like that?" Victor asks, before licking him again.

"Oh my God! Oh!"

It's nothing like the night before, nothing like the hard heat of their cocks rubbing together in the muscle of Victor's hand. It's soft and skilled and unpredictable. Sherlock holds as still as he can, which is not very, as Victor presses his lips to Sherlock's head, then opens his mouth and draws him in, sucking gently, tongue tracing small, slow circles.

Sherlock's _oh_ of surprise turns into a low moan, a sigh, an _ah_ of pleasure, repeated, as all the focus of his sharp mind concentrates on his cock, and what is happening to it. He feels as though he's twenty feet tall and his cock is growing longer, harder, absolutely massive in the warm, slippery space of Victor's mouth. He cants his hips up, seeking more, and finding the back of Victor's throat. Victor swallows hard around him, and Sherlock cries out, his body tumbling toward a climax, as fast as it can.

Victor grasps Sherlock by the hips and yanks him closer toward the edge of the bed, changing the angle so he can drop his mouth down directly into Sherlock's lap. Sherlock sits up and runs his fingers over Victor's close-cropped hair. Victor loops his arms under Sherlock's legs and holds him tight, mouth busily sliding. Sherlock is turning inside out, something soft and expansive and clear and true unfurling from deep inside him, into Victor, who swallows around him.

Sherlock's legs are slung over Victor's shoulders and Victor tightens his grip, sucking him harder and faster, all obscene noises and slick friction. Sherlock feels like he should be running, feels like he is; he pants and tries to thrust into Victor's mouth, but he's trapped, held in place. Victor pulls off abruptly. The only sound in the room is Sherlock's ragged moan. All of a sudden it's a travesty, a disaster. ( _No, why did you stop? Why? Why?_ )

He opens his mouth to object, but Victor bends over him again, hot breath and soft tongue moving up Sherlock's length, from root to tip, over and over, each passage a tease, moving Sherlock by tiny increments closer and closer to orgasm. He understands, Victor is trying to draw things out, to make it better, but he wants to scream.

He's ready to beg, _please, Victor, please hurry_ , but before he can form the words, Victor takes him into his mouth once more, swallows him whole into the warm, wet place and Sherlock has never, no never imagined it would feel quite like this. Even in the mind palace, he never could have predicted the way he would need and need and have and have, the heat and buzz and honey sweetness of being inside another person, being taken in by this boy that he loves.

It's the last thought he manages before his mind is utterly gone, his back arching as he falls into the pillows. Victor picks up speed and grasps him hard and Sherlock shakes from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet, his orgasm hitting him like a convulsion, his heels rattling against Victor's back. He comes in Victor's mouth, and Victor is with him, Victor is around him, all the way through it, even as he starts to come down, even as he starts to come back, to the sound of his own breath slowing, to his own soft sighs.

Everything Victor says and does is a promise, each act a pledge. He feels that now, more than he ever has. He trusts. He has to. He has no choice.

When Victor does finally release him, it's slow and gentle. Sherlock gasps as Victor presses a kiss to the top of his thigh, to his knee. When he's able to sit up again, Victor's looking up at him and smiling. Sherlock bites his lower lip.

"All right then?" Victor takes Sherlock's feet into his hands and rubs them, pressing them together. It's a small thing, but so comforting, so good.

Sherlock nods. He's sure his hair is a fright—so much for his plan to sort it out before Victor woke up. He can't imagine the expression on his face. He can't _feel_ his face. He's completely wrung out.

He slides off the edge of the bed, directly into Victor's lap. He straddles Victor's knees, wraps his arms around Victor's neck, and snogs him, artlessly. Victor is warm and close and his lips are wet with saliva and semen, and everything is good. Victor giggles into his mouth and Sherlock makes an unbecoming noise, a laugh, a sound of appreciation, something that will have to do because he can't form words.

He is, however, formulating a plan. (He is a clever boy.)

He slips his hand down between them, taking Victor in hand and kissing him harder. Victor's moan rumbles in his chest, low and sweet.

Sherlock breaks the kiss to look down at his hand wrapped around Victor's cock. This is the first time, Sherlock realises, the first time he's touched Victor, the first time he's touched another person intimately. The first time anyone's let him be this close. It's an act of trust. He isn't sure why he deserves it. He's done nothing to make Victor believe in him this implicitly. A leap of faith. 

Victor groans, his head falling back. His cock is thick and hard and radiating heat, the tip wet with his fluids, slicking Sherlock's palm. Victor nuzzles the side of Sherlock's neck. "Sherlock," he says. Just the name. Somehow it's more intimate than all the _sweethearts_ he's ever uttered.

Sherlock slides off Victor's lap and pushes against his chest with his free hand. He can't speak: he's afraid, if he opens his mouth, if he uses words, that he'll break some spell, and somehow it will all go sideways, and he won't get to do what he's planning. Victor gets the idea and lies flat on his back, on the worn Persian rug. Sherlock kneels beside him, running his hands over Victor's chest and belly and legs, brushing against his cock, teasing.

"You look as if you're getting ready to play piano," Victor jokes, his smile soft.

Light filters in through the trees outside Victor's window. The warm yellow of summer dawn casts moving shadows across the rug, across Victor's face. He's wonderful, just beautiful, spread out beneath Sherlock, ready and waiting and full, for him.

Sherlock wants to do right by Victor. He wants to use his mouth. He bends down and kisses the left side of Victor's chest, placing his lips over Victor's heart before moving to his left nipple and sliding his tongue across it, experimentally. Victor's _ah_ comes out as a sigh and a laugh.

Good, then.

Sherlock moves to the other nipple and brushes it lightly with his lips as he slides his hand back down to Victor's cock, and rubs his thumb over the head. Sherlock holds Victor like he likes to hold himself: not too much, just enough, as he strokes him.

"Mmm, that's nice, sweetheart," Victor croons, and he thrusts into Sherlock's hand, and caresses Sherlock's hair.

Sherlock moves lower, shifting so he's over Victor's cock. He drapes himself over Victor's belly. Victor's hand rubs Sherlock's shoulder blades as Sherlock brings his mouth to Victor's head and runs his lips over it, swiping his tongue across the shaft. Victor groans.

( _Success_.)

Sherlock licks Victor again, and Victor gasps and tries to thrust into Sherlock's hand. ( _A bit desperate, then. Very good. Better than good: it's practically Christmas._ ) Sherlock's own cock throbs in sympathy ( _already!_ ) but he has a thing to do, and he's determined to get it right.

( _No time like the present._ )

He opens his mouth and slides down over Victor's head, taking him in, enclosing him and sucking lightly as he runs his tongue back and forth. Victor moans and his hips lift and Sherlock allows him to press further into his mouth. He sucks harder and firms his lips and moves his tongue more lavishly, deliberately.

Victor stills, his breathing ragged. "Sherlock, that's very good."

Sherlock is sure he is glowing, his whole body luminous with Victor's praise. _Very good_. He's never needed to hear a thing more than this. He hums with pleasure, and Victor moans again. "Oh, Sherlock."

Sherlock loses all sense of himself, his focus narrowing down to his tongue, his mouth, Victor's warm hard cock, the saliva that gathers and allows him to slide up and down Victor's length, the sounds of Victor unravelling, soft groans in the back of Victor's throat, Sherlock's half-pronounced name on Victor's lips. Sherlock wants one thing: to give Victor whatever he needs to tumble over the edge. He moves in earnest, and Victor's hand lands on his shoulder and grasps him. An affirmation.

The sound of the wind shuffling through the leaves outside Victor's window joins with the positively filthy sounds of Sherlock's busy mouth, his breath coming hard through his nostrils, Victor's rhythmic moans, his rich voice breaking, breaking, breaking, waves against a far shore, building into a storm.

Victor groans, his voice tight, and Sherlock feels his cock pulse under his tongue. He won't pull off, not when Victor has shown him how good it feels to be swallowed down. Victor's sighs are music in his ears, perfect, beautiful.

He holds Victor's cock in his hand until it starts to soften, unsure what happens now, but so very, very pleased with himself.

"Come here," Victor says.

He holds out his arms. Sherlock slides into them and sprawls across Victor's chest, smiling to himself as Victor kisses the top of his head.

He is filthy enough. He can probably find it in himself to be filthier. Unabashedly, he kisses Victor on the mouth. Victor's tongue meets his, and together they taste what remains of Victor's release.

Sherlock smiles into Victor's eyes, propping himself up on Victor's chest.

"A nice way to wake up," Victor says.

Sherlock nods.

"You going to talk, sweetheart?"

Sherlock nods. The two of them laugh, together. Sherlock rolls onto his back and they lie, side by side, on Victor's rug.

Victor's hand finds his, and they lace their fingers together. They're holding hands. A simple thing. Amazing. Unprecedented.

"You've done that before," Sherlock says.

In the silence that follows, he curses himself. Wrong, blunt, intrusive. He meant to offer a compliment. He should say something unambiguously nice. "I mean—that was good."

"Was it?" Victor doesn't sound cross.

"Yes."

Sherlock thinks about how loudly he shouted. It _was_ good, insanely so. Obvious.  ( _Note to self: find a way to catalogue orgasms based on volume of involuntary vocalizations, chart vocal responses for Victor, so Victor will never doubt himself._ )

"I have. I've done that before," Victor says. More quietly, he adds, "Have you?"

Victor's ceiling is smooth and white. Not a crack in the plaster. It's been redone, sometime in the past four or five years. Hints of plaster dust grace the top of the wall, in the far corner. Easier to look at than looking at Victor, while they talk about this.

"No." Sherlock waits for Victor to mock, to ask about his history. Sherlock has already anticipated all the questions.

( _Hang on, you haven't done anything? Nothing at all?_ )

He doesn't have good answers.

Victor raises their hands to his mouth, and kisses Sherlock's knuckles. No questions follow.

Sherlock sighs. A sense of sinking down into the floor, of his whole body spreading out like melting chocolate, washes through him. He struggles to label it, settling on a single word: relief. It's unfamiliar. He is safe. He is understood. Whatever his particular sins (lack of experience screams out from his every pore), he's already forgiven. He's all right the way he is. The idea warms him all the way through.

He stays with the soft, pleasant sensation for at least ten seconds (an eternity) before his thoughts tear off in a new direction.

He needs to know more about Victor.

He knows very well the best ways to extract information from someone. Show no mercy. Make bold yet inaccurate statements, viciously. Rely on the desire to contradict. Pick on seemingly insignificant details. Simple. Easy.

He can't do any of that to Victor, obviously, but he's dying, practically ready to crawl out of his skin, with curiosity. Victor's never given any hint of his past experiences, never really even confirmed that he's gay. (Not verbally.) He isn't open about it with their classmates, not in any way that's obvious to Sherlock.

Sherlock turns over numerous possible angles of approach, before settling on a direct question, asked in the quietest, gentlest tone he can muster. "Who did you do it with, before?"

"What?" 

"I just—I didn't know you had a boyfriend, before."

He blushes furiously as soon as he realises the implication of what he's said. It sounds as if he assumes Victor is his boyfriend now.

( _Is he?_ )

( _Isn't he?_ )

Victor squeezes Sherlock's hand a little tighter, and rubs his thumb along the inside of Sherlock's wrist. "I haven't really, sweetheart."

"Oh. But you said—"

"Yeah. I've done some stuff. And I've had some scrapes, but not really anything I would call a boyfriend scenario."

"Oh." Sherlock waits. Sometimes, if you wait, people talk.

Waiting is terrible. Each second is a new, excruciating torment.

It's worth it. Victor takes a deep breath (steeling himself, gathering his courage) and begins. "Can you imagine, young and queer and growing up in this place, no one around? Already an outsider, yeah? Small village, small-minded folk. It was difficult, sometimes. Mostly I've just been alone."

Protests form on Sherlock's lips— _but you're brilliant, who wouldn't want you_ —and they die there. He imagines Victor, different from everyone else, unable to connect. He thinks of his own nineteen long years of social isolation, the things he's done to avoid other people, the way no one has ever seemed to accept him or like him, how strange people find him. _Say the right thing. Say a thing that isn't completely wrong._

He doesn't say anything at all.

Victor sighs. "There was a bit of a scandal, actually, three years ago. I got in with an older bloke in town. Not much older. Nineteen. Your age now, sweetheart. We didn't know what we were doing. Just mucked around a bit. It might not have been a problem, but people took notice. Age of consent law is tricky. I didn't even know it was different for us, for queer kids. Someone told the police, and the bloke got arrested."

Sherlock squeezes Victor's hand tightly. He's forgotten about trying to speak, as he takes in this new data. He will listen with everything he's got. He owes that much to Victor, to make up for the gaps in his understanding, which are unbearable to him.

"The bloke called me from the police station, crying and terrified, and I was scared that they were coming for me too. The dad saw what a mess I was. I ended up telling him the whole thing. Didn't think I would, but I was desperate." Victor lapses into silence for a long moment. "I hope you never feel that way. You won't, if I can help it. I promise."

Sherlock's heart swells. He inhales sharply, preparing himself to reply, to make his own vow. He would do anything to ensure Victor's happiness.

Before he can speak, Victor continues. "Next thing I knew, it was over. The dad took care of everything."

"He did?"

"Yeah. Went to the police, argued against laying any charges. Kept arguing until they agreed it was a farce. Then he helped the bloke move to a new town. Fresh start. I went to school a bit later, and people found other things to talk about. And that was it."

"Didn't you miss him?"

It isn't what he most wants to ask. ( _Were you in love? Was he better than me? He left. Leaving is unacceptable. You know I won't leave you, don't you? Never. Nothing could make me leave, not now._ ) His belly churns as he wonders what might have happened if it had worked out between Victor and this other, no doubt better boy.

Victor has fallen into silence. ( _Must have said the wrong thing. Try again._ )

Sherlock clears his throat. "It must have been hard." ( _Isn't that what people say?_ )

"He couldn't stay here, not after all that. It really was for the best."

Sherlock allows himself to let go of a small measure of his anxiety. Victor has already said it wasn't a _boyfriend scenario_. He suddenly regrets making Victor think about it. Comparisons might arise, unfortunate ones. ( _Change the subject._ ) "And your father was all right with—you?"

"Oh, yeah." The answer comes so quickly, it's a reflex. A given. There's a constant, baseline mutual approval between Victor and his dad.

Sherlock tries to imagine what his own father would have done, under similar circumstances. Made sympathetic noises? Tut-tutted his way around the issue? Turned a blind eye so Mycroft (ever the intrusive big brother) could tidy things up? He keeps knocking into the idea of having an honest conversation about himself, with Mummy, with Daddy, with (shudder) Mycroft.

( _Daddy knows, so Mycroft must. Have they talked about it? Unthinkable. Shut up. Shut this down. Shut—_ )

"That's—good?"

"Yeah. I think he knew, before. I'd never talked about any girls. Which isn't proof of anything, really, I mean, I know some people are private, and don't like to say—" Victor stumbles over his own sentence.

The stumble is a tell. Victor is talking about Sherlock. He thinks Sherlock is private. He thinks Sherlock doesn't like to talk about himself. Sherlock frowns at the ceiling. Is he private? He never meant to be. He feels completely vulnerable, practically flayed wide open, always, but especially with Victor.

Victor continues, "The dad's open-minded. So he helped my friend, and he never had any ideas about me being any other way. He just wants me to be happy."

"Parents always say that." Mummy and Daddy certainly have, plenty of times, although they have a habit of making Sherlock miserable.

"He means it." Victor plays with Sherlock's fingers. "And he follows through."

Sherlock blinks up at the ceiling. He's imagined, when Victor's father arrives, that everything must change, that he and Victor will have to hide what they're doing. He hasn't got much further than some loose ideas about messing up the bedding in the guest room, to make it appear that he's slept there. That, and denying everything, while perhaps playing footsie under the dining room table. "I thought maybe we would have to be careful. Hide this."

Victor rolls onto his side and props himself up on his elbow. His smile is lovely, so patient, so soft. "You did?"

Sherlock returns the smile, his eyes running up and down the line of Victor's jaw, his throat, the muscles of his shoulders. He nods.

Victor kisses his cheek, the corner of his mouth. "No, sweetheart. I mean, discretion is a good thing, no shagging on the dining room table, probably good to keep it to our rooms, but no. You're here as—well, as my guest, first. But the dad knows how much I like you. I'm afraid I've talked you up a good deal. He asked me if we were boyfriends. I had to say—well, we weren't, then."

Sherlock's heart expands in his chest until he can't breathe. ( _Say something. Confirm. CONFIRM._ )

Victor asks in a whisper, "We are now, aren't we?"

The question is everything Sherlock needs. He blinks, and a tear runs from the corner of his eye, along the side of his nose. "Yes. Of course we are."

Victor smiles and wipes the corners of his eyes, too. "The dad will be pleased." He kisses Sherlock's temple, and pushes himself up into a sitting position.

The bed is thoroughly dishevelled, most of the bedding spread out on the floor, pooled around them. The cold early morning air is starting to chill Sherlock. He's in an in-between place, unable to decide if he needs to go back to sleep, or get up for the day. His sleep habits are erratic at best, under normal circumstances. He doesn't want to miss a moment of time spent with Victor. He'll stay awake all month if he has to, if Victor wants him.

( _Victor does._ )

"I'll tell you what, Sherlock Holmes, I'll be a good boyfriend and fetch us some breakfast. Too early for cook. Good thing I know how to make toast." Victor stands, and shuffles through a pile of clothes strewn on a chair, pulling out a pair of pyjama bottoms and a blue t-shirt.

"I'll come with you," Sherlock offers, the moment he understands Victor is planning to leave the room.

"No, I insist." Victor offers him a hand, and pulls him to his feet as if he weighs nothing at all. He draws Sherlock into a tight embrace, arm looped around Sherlock's waist, and snogs him hard. Sherlock leans into the kiss, his arms flung over Victor's shoulders.

Victor picks him up and tosses him onto the bed. He falls across it sideways, breathless and giggling.

"I want to think of you, here, in my room, while you wait for me, sweetheart. I want to come back and find you here. The way you are now. The way we are now."

He sounds so earnest, Sherlock barely knows how to act, how to be in this place. He can only say yes, only agree. "Okay."

"Okay."

With a wink, Victor is gone.

Sherlock sits up, and smiles at the door as it closes, and looks around the room, with its chair by the fire, and its jumble of things Victor has collected over the years. _My boyfriend's room_ , he thinks. _I'm in the room where my boyfriend grew up. I slept with him. We sleep together. Literally and euphemistically._  

He's happy, he realises with a bit of a shock. He, who is never content, always restless, and hardly ever expects to feel anything other than disappointment in people, is happy. He has what he wants. What he needs.

He sighs heavily, and gets out of the bed. He should take a shower. He's sticky with sweat and last night's sex, and he's still concerned about his hair. He opens the door between their rooms, and passes through the guest room. It's a stark, neat contrast to Victor's room, where he supposes he'll spend most of his time for the next month. He grins at the neatly made bed.

 _Won't be needing_ _you_.

He lingers for longer than he needs to under the shower, water hot as he can stand it, and allows a jumble of emotions to run through him. He's relieved and grateful and sad for his former self. He can't believe it's come to this, that he and Victor have come through, somehow, negotiating this arrangement. People do this. They meet and like each other and have the sex and become boyfriends. They fall in love and decide that they're together. It's a thing that happens, and it's happened to him.

After the shower, and a few long minutes spent wrangling his hair, he considers dressing, and thinks better of it. He settles on taking a fresh pair of pants from the drawer and putting them on. They're his favourite boxer briefs, snug and blue-striped. He wonders if Victor will like them.

He returns to Victor's room. His skin is starting to cool after the shower, and the morning air is chilly, so he gathers the sheet from the floor, and wraps himself in it. Surely Victor will come back soon. It's boring without him.

He eyes the model airplane jumble on the desk and mentally sorts the different parts. It would take him twenty-eight minutes, approximately, to separate them into the three—no, four—different kits they came from. He sees that Victor has begun to glue parts from one kit to parts from another, making a hybrid of a de Havilland Vampire and a Nakajima Kikka. Victor is playing at something he doesn't understand. A fine trickle of delight washes through Sherlock. Victor is smart. Clever. Creative. The best person. The best boyfriend.

He goes to the bookshelf and runs his finger along the spines. Victor has an eclectic mix of books from all points in his personal history, everything from Beatrix Potter to George Orwell to Nick Hornby, alongside some leather-bound Dickens, some George Eliot. There's a copy of _The Diverting History of John Gilpin_ , which makes Sherlock smile. Victor is ridiculously well read for a business major, much more deeply than most people.

His eye lands on a couple of oversized children's books, mid-1800s, if Sherlock's knowledge of mid-Victorian bindings is correct. (It is.) He opens one of them, an illustrated folk song collection. The art is gorgeous, finely drawn, fully coloured. He can't resist running his fingertips over the deep blue of a ship's sail that illustrates a sailor's chantey. That page is more worn at the edges than the others. He imagines young Victor returning to read it again and again, dreaming of a life at sea.

He's still looking through the book when Victor pushes through the door, carrying a tray that's loaded with toast and fruit and scrambled eggs, and a plate stacked with the same biscuits they had at the lake, yesterday. He's got a thermos tucked under his arm. He places everything on the dresser and smiles at Sherlock, going to him immediately. Sherlock just has time to put the book back on the shelf before Victor pulls him into his arms and kisses him. His lips taste like ripe cherries.

"Look who I found," he murmurs. Zeus stands in the doorway, tail wagging tentatively. When he sees Sherlock, he puts his head down and wags his tail more furiously, shuffling over to him. Sherlock sits on the floor, and Zeus rubs his face against Sherlock's knees.

"Slept in the game room all night," Victor says. "Couldn't be arsed to come upstairs."

"Just as well, maybe," Sherlock says. He laughs as Zeus rolls onto his back and wriggles under his hands. "We might have frightened him with our noise."

"Quite right."

Victor brings the tray down to the floor and sets it between them, telling Zeus _no_ when he tries to inspect it, bribing him with a slice of apple and bits of egg and toast when he won't listen.

The thermos contains coffee, which is strong, and welcome. Sherlock sips it, enjoying the feeling of coming fully awake. He surprises himself with his own hunger. He smears strawberry jam on the toast, which is dripping with butter, and relishes it.

"You were looking at that book," Victor says, when they've thoroughly devastated the tray. He wipes his hands on his pyjama bottoms and goes to the bookcase and retrieves it. He handles it carefully, easing it open on his lap. It takes Sherlock's breath away, how careful Victor can be.

"When the dad bought this house, the library came with it," Victor says, as he turns the pages. Trying to find something to show Sherlock. "Not a large collection, but lots of great stuff in there. I cadged a few volumes for my own."

Sherlock imagines Victor alone in this house, sorting through the stacks of books, and finding a few treasures to keep for himself. Sherlock glances back at the shelf. He could deduce a great deal, based on Victor's choices.

"Here," Victor tells him, handing over the book. "Look at this." He kisses Sherlock on the forehead as he stands up from the floor. He shakes his legs out. They both have pins and needles from sitting cross-legged for the last half hour.

The kiss warms Sherlock inside out. Victor does everything so effortlessly. Even if they haven't said it, even if they never say it, Sherlock knows Victor loves him.

Victor rummages around in his wardrobe and pulls out a guitar case. Sherlock raises his eyebrows. "What's that?"

Victor points a chin at the book that's open on Sherlock's lap. "Gonna sing that for you."

Sherlock suppresses a smile. "I didn't know you played."

"You're not the only one who's musically inclined."

Victor knows that Sherlock plays violin. Everyone does. He practiced at all hours during his first night in the dorms, and caught a black eye for it the next day. Allen Whitstone. Hit harder than Sherlock had guessed he would, moved a lot faster. He'd thought Whitstone was a runner, not a boxer. Turns out you can be both. Annoying.

Sherlock looks at the book, and his breath catches. "Oh." Victor's opened it on a two-page spread, a fully coloured illustration on the left, and the text of a song on the right. "The Maid of the Mill," Sherlock reads.

The picture is of a beautiful girl, of the kind Victorian artists favoured, slender and drawn in fine pen strokes that have been coloured with an extraordinary delicacy of hand. She's dark-haired and swooning, in a gauzy white dress. She reclines against a tree, alone in an abandoned setting. A mill wheel stands in the background of the drawing, still over a dry stream bed. The girl is pale, her skin almost translucent. A ghost? Perhaps, or well on her way.

Victor picks out a tune on his guitar. It's slow and quiet and melancholy. When he sings, his voice is low and warm, like soft kisses along Sherlock's spine.

"Golden years ago in a mill beside the sea, there dwelt a little maiden, who plighted her faith to me. The mill-wheel now is silent, the maid's eyes closed be, And all that now remains of her are the words she sang to me."

The woman is dead, but she sings through the chorus, through Victor, now: "Do not forget me, do not forget me." The tune is wilting, sad and lonely. "Think sometimes of me still. When the morn breaks and throstle awakes, remember, remember the maid of the mill."

Sherlock could never, will never forget Victor. He closes his eyes and leans back against the bed, listening as Victor plays his guitar, singing softly through another verse.

Sherlock's limbs are pliant and loose from the shower. He feels the whole expanse of the time he and Victor will share stretching out before them, the hours and days before Victor's father arrives, and the rest of the month to follow. And next year at school, just like Victor says. And after that, well, Victor will graduate, but they'll find a way to be together. Maybe Victor will do an extra year of school. Maybe Sherlock will quit school and follow Victor, wherever Victor goes. School is rubbish anyway.

The music lulls him and the food in his belly relaxes him, and he sinks a little deeper. He catches himself falling asleep. ( _Sleep when you're dead_ , _Holmes._ ) He slips sideways, still relaxed, still lulled by the song, and before he knows it, he's drifting down into the mind palace. If he sinks a bit deeper, he'll be all the way there.

_Leaden years have passed, gray-haired I look around._

He'll add Victor playing guitar, Victor's voice, singing this song, to the store of the things he knows. Catalogue him, remember him, just like the song says. His breathing slows, and he lets go of the dregs of tension in his neck and shoulders, and down he goes.

As he sinks, he realises that he misses being here, part of him misses it. He used to enjoy using the mind palace for reasons other than spending time with Victor. Now that they're together— _boyfriends_ , Sherlock corrects himself, with a thrill—he wonders if he'll get back to it, get back to using the mind palace as a place to store information, just like this. He could make whole rooms full of Victor, plan entire wings dedicated to him, full of Victor-related minutiae.

Victor starts into the chorus again: _do not forget me_. His voice is like a hint of a breeze, originating somewhere far away, anchoring Sherlock like a silver thread to the room, even as he sets his feet on the thick carpet of the hallway in the Victorian wing. Perfect, exactly where he would have chosen to land: just the place for a Victorian song.

The wing is different now.

It's always been a cocoon of sorts, dark and rich, sometimes illuminated by lamps set high on the walls, and once, by torches. Now there are skylights and windows; the ceiling and upper walls are made of glass. Sherlock looks up and sees a flock of brightly coloured birds pass in the sky overhead.

_Think sometimes of me still._

It's so much more open, all cool blues and whites and high arches. His feet are bare. Even here, he's wrapped in the sheet he took from Victor's bed. He runs his hands over the smooth cotton.

As he wanders, the architecture opens and shifts around him, the hallway transforming into a grand room. There are no closed doors, in this vaulting building that arches up into the sky.

He wonders, briefly, about his guests, the criminal ones. The rooms he's set aside for Jack and the Bride and Dr. Cream must be elsewhere now, must have sunk, perhaps, into some lower level, where every door requires a lock. Here, there are only open archways that lead to grand balconies under clear blue skies.

He catches sight of the inhabitants of this bright world, inspired, no doubt, by Victor and everything he means to Sherlock, for Sherlock. Under vine-decked arbours, men in cream-coloured suits speak in low tones, and straighten each other's ties. They look at Sherlock and nod, and smile. He moves on, knowing that everything he sees is a reflection of Victor, of all the changes he's wrought.

It's a bright world. He is free.

He wants to find the room with the red door handle, to see what's happening there, now that he and Victor are together. Through open archways come bits of conversation, things he heard on the train, things he's read in books, and snatches of Victor's song:

_Remember the maid, the maid of the mill._

He passes a beautiful pale-haired man, compact in his body, soft in his smile, reading a passage from a book while a few other men look on:

"...something better in life than this rubbish, if only he could get to it—love—nobility—big spaces where passion clasped peace, spaces no science could reach, but they existed for ever, full of woods some of them, and arched with majestic sky and a friend..."

Sherlock recognises E. M. Forster's _Maurice_. There have always been men like him and Victor. They are part of a grand tradition.

A final archway, painted red, stands at the end of the hallway. The faint music of Victor's guitar filters down to him. In the world above, he and Victor are together.

He steps through the archway, expecting to be met by sunlight and a warm breeze. Instead, the scene shifts. There is the fireplace, where the flames never die, and there the two chairs, not quite like each other, where he and mind palace Victor have sat and loved and talked, before he and Victor ever kissed.

He lets the sweet strains of music fill him up, fill the air. If he and Victor no longer come here, then it will hold the memory of this exact moment. A phonograph appears on a table in the centre of the room. Yes. It will preserve this song, this memory of Victor, singing to him. He'll use it to mark this time, when he's been so much happier than he ever thought he could be.

The record turns, repeating the music of Victor's song, the soft strum of his guitar, the first words he sang: _Many years ago, in a mill beside the sea..._

Good. He'll get to keep this, to remember. The record turns, and the music plays, the whole song repeating itself.

"Sweetheart," Victor's voice says, from somewhere above him.

"Victor?" Sherlock turns around, but Victor is nowhere to be found.

"You're dreaming."

The sensation of a hand squeezing his shoulder, and a kiss pressed to the top of his head, brings Sherlock up through the layers of himself, back into the room where Victor, real and solid, Victor, true and steadfast, waits for him.

Victor's hand is firm and smooth, his fingers on Sherlock's cheek. Sherlock draws them to his mouth, and kisses them.

"I wasn't asleep."

"You weren't?" Victor sits down beside him and holds his knee.

"Not really. Just—thinking about you."

"Me?"

"About this, sort of. You've changed everything." He smiles crookedly.

"Have I?"

"Yes. You know that, don't you? Everything's different because of you."

Victor cards his fingers through Sherlock's hair. "Hush. Not everything. You are as you've always been. You're you, yourself."

Sherlock shakes his head. "I'm better. I'm better than I was."

Victor doesn't argue, and Sherlock doesn't speak again. It's best if he doesn't explain.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important._
> 
> _~A Case of Identity_

"Tonight's the night, sweetheart," Victor tells Sherlock, after dinner, on the fourth day, carding his fingers through Sherlock's sweat-damp curls.

Sherlock's belly is full, his limbs heavy. He lies with his back pressed against Victor's chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of Victor's breath. They sprawl together on the sofa in the games room, lazy and content as housecats, their shirts soaked with their mutual sweat. They came to the games room to play billiards, but it's far too hot, despite the lateness of the hour. The July air is thick, the humidity hanging palpably in the air. The scents of cut grass and roses ghost through the wide open windows, on an idea of a breeze.

Sherlock knows exactly what Victor is suggesting. The sky has been a cloudless blue all day, and promises to remain clear into the night. Perfect weather for swimming, and stargazing.

"I agree," he says. "Good."

He's got a plan of his own, one he's been harbouring for a long time, and one that will go perfectly well with an evening by the lake. He won't say anything, though. He wants it to be a surprise.

He's aware of the pressure of their dwindling time alone together, emboldening him, making him want to stake a claim, do or say something definitive. A final grand gesture before a new variable comes onto the scene. In three days, Victor's father will be here. Even though Victor has told Sherlock everything will be fine, Sherlock can't imagine it will be exactly the same.

Nothing is permanent. Everything shifts, even the things you don't want to change. Especially the things you don't want to change. Of this, Sherlock is certain.

They interlace their fingers. Victor's foot lolls on the floor. Sherlock shifts in Victor's arms, and runs his hand down behind himself, between them, pressing his palm to Victor's cock, which is, as he's hoped and suspected, half hard.

"Do that again," Victor says, as Sherlock takes his hand away.

"Later."

"Tease."

Sherlock smiles, and kisses Victor's fingers.

The past four days have made Sherlock so much more confident than he ever thought he would be. Victor seems to love everything he does, no matter how silly or awkward or passionate. Sherlock feels himself unravelling, his time with Victor slowly undoing the loneliness and despair of the first nineteen years of his life. He can't imagine going back to the way things were before.

The fact that he loves Victor is no surprise at all. He's done that for months now, been steeped in devotion and a grabbing need that he thought might kill him. What he didn't know, and what has kept him in a continual state of shock and delight since they first kissed, is how capable he is of being loved. Victor is so consistent, so unwavering, so mild-tempered and patient. Sherlock can't resist. He absorbs each caress, each kindness, like parched soil taking in the rain.

 _Swimming, tonight. And?_ "Swimsuits?" he asks aloud. He's packed a pair of swim trunks, but he hopes he won't be using them.

"What do you think?" Victor's voice is a rough tease, running all up and down Sherlock's spine, making him shiver despite the heat.

"Perhaps not." Sherlock smiles. He would never have thought he could be this bold, not actually, not in real life.

"Perhaps not," Victor replies.

Sherlock sighs, and Victor makes a hum of approval, and Sherlock turns in Victor's arms, peeling himself away, because they're both sticky and damp. He props himself up on Victor's chest, and kisses his lips, remembering the first time, here on this very sofa, in this very room.

These kisses are different, slow and sweet. They have all night. They have all month, and the school year after that, and after that, who knows? Anything is possible. Everything.

Sherlock dips his tongue between Victor's lips, tasting the strawberry tart they've just finished demolishing. Victor snakes his hand up along the line of Sherlock's shoulder, and rubs the back of his neck. Sherlock groans. His muscles are sore and played out from everything they've done over the last few days. He wonders if he'll ever get used to it. He hopes not.

"Sunset in an hour," Victor says. "Just enough time for us to gather supplies and walk down to the lake."

"Very well," Sherlock tells him. "I'll get up, if we must."

"We must."

Together they go back to Victor's room. The bed is made, the bedding changed, and the small collection of dishes they've allowed to gather have been taken away. Victor places his backpack on the smooth bedspread, and opens a dresser drawer, checking through a small collection of torches for two with fresh batteries, so they can find their way back in the dark.

Sherlock excuses himself to go get a towel from the guest bath, and while he's there, he opens the cabinet under the sink and fishes out the paper bag with the lube and condoms he brought with him. As a last thought, he adds a fresh bar of soap from the basket on the back of the toilet.

He prepares himself as best he can for what he really hopes Victor will agree to try tonight.

When he gets back to Victor's room, Victor sizes him up. "Took a shower, did you?"

"Mm hmm. Needed a change of clothes. Thought I might as well clear off the sweat."

Victor ruffles his wet hair, and gathers him in for a rough hug, snogging the side of his neck, and inhaling deeply. Sherlock giggles as Victor lifts him off his feet.

"I'm filthy, sweetheart. Thought I'd wait til the lake to clean up, though. That all right?"

"Course."

"Good. Wouldn't want to fail to meet the minimum standard."

Sherlock rubs Victor's back. "Impossible."

Victor grins at him as he slides a thick blanket into his backpack, along with Sherlock's towel, and one of his own. He's already packed the torches, along with bottles of water, a flask full of brandy ( _in case you get cold, sweetheart_ ) and a container of biscuits, because even though they're still full from dinner, he worries about Sherlock, tells him he isn't eating enough.

Sherlock has never eaten so much in his life. He'd be surprised if he hasn't gained half a stone in the last few days. No matter. He's happy. Might as well let Victor fatten him up a bit.

While Victor's back is turned, Sherlock slips the paper bag into the pack. His stomach flips. He's nervous about what he wants to do, even though they're together, and they've done so much already. This is different, though. Or maybe it won't be. Maybe it will be exactly the same as everything else: wonderful, absolutely amazing.

The walk to the lake is pure magic. They move through the hush of the hot evening, in silence, every sound softened: their footsteps, the rushing of the stream, and the susurrus of the long grass against their legs. They travel as if in a dream, away from the fat orange setting sun, toward the lake. Sherlock's limbs are heavy, his skin singing, his heart and groin, full. It's dusk when they arrive, the whole evening winding down in a pale blue and golden hush.

They sit together at the end of the dock, sweat making their clothes cling, legs swinging over the dark water, and wait until the first of the stars come out.  

Finally, Victor rises, a tall, imposing shadow against the darkening lake, and takes off his clothes, letting them fall to the wooden planks of the dock. When he's fully undressed, he stands at the open space above the ladder that leads down into the water. Sherlock places a hand on his calf. Victor smiles down at him. "Ready, sweetheart?"

Victor doesn't wait for an answer; he just dives, so smoothly that there's barely a splash. He slips under the surface like a seal, like the water is more natural to him than air. The lake shines and ripples in the low light. Victor breaks the surface, and treads water, his face pointed toward the dock, watching Sherlock, although Sherlock can't make out his features clearly. He doesn't have to: Victor is waiting for Sherlock to join him, knowing he can't resist.

He takes his time removing his clothes. He kicks off his shoes and peels off his t-shirt, slowly stripping it over his head. He can't see Victor's expression, but he bets Victor is licking his lips. Sherlock unzips the flies on his shorts and eases them down the tops of his hips, baring the swell of his buttocks slowly, then pushing them down the rest of the way. He steps out of them delicately, stalks his way to the edge of the dock, swings out onto the first step of the ladder, and dips his toes into the lake.

He stares down into the black water before he lets go. If a swimmer goes deep enough, there's a point where the water pressure balances the body's buoyancy, and it becomes easier and easier to sink. Tonight, and maybe every night, from now until the end of his days, Sherlock knows he will choose to float.

He makes his way over to Victor, luxuriating in the sensation of the cool and warm patches in the water, the brush of weeds against his feet. Victor waits for him, patient as always, then turns and swims for the centre of the lake. It isn't much more than a large pond, but in the dark, the shore, with its line of trees, seems distant, and the sky, that much bigger.

"Float on your back," Victor says, so quietly Sherlock can barely hear him. "Just float, and look up."

The water is cool over Sherlock's body, caressing him freely everywhere. Swimming here, the two of them, with no one to see, feels holy, as if the water will bind them together. He rolls onto his back and relaxes, so only his face and feet poke up above the surface of the water.

_Oh._

Dusk has come on rapidly, and the transition from evening into night has cleared the last of the day's haze from the sky. The stars are thick, dizzyingly so, the bright band of the Milky Way not only visible, but overwhelming in its intensity. In town, it's impossible to see. A pity: it's absolutely stunning. Sherlock drinks it in, dizzy with it. Everything seems closer and further away at once. He feels very, very small. He laughs.

Victor's fingers brush his arm. From the water's edge, comes the grinding sound of frog song, and the music of crickets.

Sherlock treads water and watches Victor watch the sky. He so desperately wants to give something back, in this moment, to hand Victor a small part of the magic Victor has given him.

After a moment's thought, he's sure he knows exactly what to say. "We're outliers."

"What do you mean, sweetheart?" Victor swims circles around him, languidly, on his belly, turning over from time to time to look at the sky.

"We're on an arm of the galaxy. When you look at that, at the Milky Way, you're looking into the centre."

"So we're edgy?" Victor teases. "On the edge."

"If you say so."

"I wouldn't be anywhere else."

They're silent for a few more long minutes, pushing through the water in long, slow strokes. Sherlock dives down, just beneath the surface, blind in the dark water, but alive and awake and resurfacing, to gasp and shake the water from his curls, and feel the breath of the night air against his wet face.

By silent agreement, they swim back to the dock, pulling themselves up the slippery wood of the ladder. The heat of the day has subsided, leaving the air comfortably warm. They dry themselves off, and take the blanket up to the shore, where the grass has been mowed, and spread it out.

Sherlock brings the pack with him, making sure it's close. He fishes around for the flask, brushing his fingers against the edge of the crinkled paper bag. Yes, everything is still there.  

They sip brandy, and settle on their backs, naked under the stars. For a few long moments, there's only silence, and the vault of the night sky, and the slowly wheeling constellations.

Victor is the first to speak. "I don't think I've said it enough, sweetheart, but I'm so very glad you came here." His voice is throaty and deep. He is so tender, so full of emotion at all times, which is a wonder to Sherlock. Sherlock feels it too: he's so full, so ready to burst, always. He's beginning to suspect that he and Victor are the same. They're just the same.

"Wouldn't have missed it for anything." He means it.

Victor clears his throat. Sherlock's mind whirs: _getting ready to say something difficult, important. What? Why? What else is there to say?_ He passes Victor the flask, and presses his leg against Victor's more firmly.

Finally, Victor whispers, his voice raspy. "Did you know? When I asked you here, did you know what I meant? It's so hard, isn't it, this, all of this, between blokes, sometimes."

Sherlock waits before he speaks. He might as well admit how scared he was. There can't be any harm in it, not now. Still, his voice trembles, betraying him. "I wanted it to be true."

Victor meets this comment with a sharp intake of breath. "You didn't know?"

As dangerous as it suddenly feels, Sherlock decides to tell the truth.  "No."

Victor makes a sound of disbelief, a sort of cough. "But you know everything about everybody. You knew when Seb was lying about that girl, and you always knew who was shagging who, and who wanted who. You knew which boys were going to get lucky on which days. I was so embarrassed around you, sweetheart. I thought you must know, about me. You're brilliant."

Sherlock is frozen, his whole body full of tension as his mind stumbles, rights itself, recalculates. Victor is saying so much. A list, he's made a list, compiled evidence: Sherlock is brilliant. Sherlock must have figured it out, must have seen. But he didn't see. He's already said so. Victor's the one who's good at this sort of stuff.

Sherlock panics, stumbling over scenarios, what he should do, what Victor would do. _Reassure. Be kind. Be gentle._

He takes Victor's hand, and squeezes it.

Victor rolls onto his side. Sherlock turns to watch him. Victor's face is softened by the darkness, all deep shadows and outlines. Sherlock has to fill in the gaps: Victor's familiar smile, his brows lifted in disbelief. "You really didn't know? How is that possible, sweetheart?"

Sherlock shrugs. "Don't know." He does know. He wanted it so badly, he couldn't believe he could actually have it. Fault in the system.

Victor shakes his head. "I thought my heart was on my sleeve. Seb even asked me about it."

"Seb?" Sherlock sits up and stares at Victor. "Seb. Seb Wilkes. Sebastian Wilkes."

Victor grins at him. "I know. Can you believe it? So clueless, and yet—"

"What did he say? How? When?"

Victor runs his hand up Sherlock's leg, making Sherlock shiver. "Remember fencing? That day you decided to show me up?"

Sherlock nods, and can't help plunging into the memory, tearing into it like Zeus with one of his toys.

What an afternoon it had been. Here, in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, with the soft rustling of leaves, and the sound of the water lapping at the shore, it seems worlds away. But Sherlock remembers, with an aching clarity, the heat and burning muscles and burning desire he'd felt that afternoon, as he and Victor sparred.

As a fencer, Victor was quick, surprisingly light on his feet, but not quick or light enough. Sherlock, with his dancer's training, had pressed his advantage mercilessly, unable to stop himself, his need and his aggression and his ego mixing horrifically. He blushes to think of it now, especially now, with Victor smiling up at him so tenderly.

"You started laughing, after the third hit," Sherlock says. He lies back down on the blanket. Better to watch the stars and feel Victor beside him, as they go over this old territory. "That surprised me."

"Did it?"

"Yes. I didn't understand. You didn't seem to care at all that you were losing." He's beginning to understand, now. Victor liked him, even then. Amazing. Miraculous.

Victor runs his hand up and down Sherlock's thigh, sending whorls of pleasure spinning everywhere. "I didn't care. I could only think what a marvel you were."

Sherlock is certain that he's glowing with pride. Warmth bursts in his chest. "I kept beating you, but you wouldn't stop trying, and you wouldn't stop laughing. I thought you were mad."

"I was. Mad for you. Completely bonkers. I would have lost a thousand matches, a thousand times over, if it meant I could get your attention. You never gave it to anyone, so I thought I didn't have a chance. So single-minded. Incredible."

They lapse into silence. Sherlock combs through his memory of the day, recasting it in the light of everything Victor has just said.

He remembers Victor approaching at the beginning of practice, as Sherlock warmed up, stretching and lunging in his solitary corner. None of the others ever asked him to practice with them, and he certainly never tried to talk to any of them. Tedious. People sparred with him when the coach told them to, or when there was no one else to work with. Otherwise, they left him alone.

Victor, though, Victor had come up to him, all swagger and smiles. The first time they'd talked, since Zeus bit Sherlock, two days before. In the moment, Victor had been sweet, all apologies and care. And now:

"How's your hand, Holmes?"

Sherlock had held up the hand, flexed it. Beneath the bandage he wore, blood oozed, and the wound ached, but he would never tell.

"Fine. Good enough to fence."

"Good. Spar?"

He remembers enjoying himself immensely, not because he was winning, but because Victor smiled at him, Victor talked to him in low, joking tones at every break they took for water, to catch their breath. Other men were there training that day, but it had been as if they didn't exist.

"You're kicking my arse, sweetheart," Victor had said to him, as they pulled their masks off for one final break.

It was the first time Victor had called him that. The moment Sherlock knew he was in real trouble. He smiles fondly at the memory. He can now, because it has led to this.

"So Seb said something to you? He was there, that day."

Victor laughs gently. "We talked, after. I was planning to ask you to come to dinner, but you went off to the chem lab muttering about some experiment. Remember?"

"God, yes. Sorry." In reality, Sherlock had raced back to his room, so he could lie on his bed and commit the entire afternoon to memory, filing each detail away in his mind palace, all the while not believing for a moment that Victor meant anything by it.

Victor raises Sherlock's hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles. "All that heavy breathing, and I couldn't even convince you to come eat with me. So it was me and Seb walking to the pub. I was chatting about nothing at all—my Business Ethics lecturer, I think—and he just said, out of the blue, 'I know you like Holmes.'"

"Did he?" Sherlock sits up again, and folds his legs under himself, placing his hand on Victor's chest, and rubbing circles there.

"It was no great secret, although I tried to hide it."

"But Seb's an idiot." It's true: Seb is interested in finance and earnestly wants a job in a bank someday, so he can make lots of money (dull) and invest it (worse yet) so he can retire early (incredibly dull), and buy a resort home somewhere warm (the definition of tedious). He's planned his entire life out in one grotesque, pedestrian, mundane blob, and yet, he saw what Sherlock couldn't.

Victor laughs. "Well, he tried to tell me you would never feel the same way about me. So I suppose he doesn't know everything."

Sherlock watches the water. "Why would he say that?"

Victor caresses Sherlock's forearm, and runs a fingertip over Sherlock's thigh. "I don't know. You get absorbed in things. It's the beauty of you. But, it never looks like there's room for anyone else in there."

Sherlock hugs his knees, and rubs his forehead with the back of his hand. Victor's words bite at him. They sound like a compliment, and he has no doubt they're intended as such, but there's a melancholy edge, as if Victor has had to compromise too much.

Sherlock _is_ single-minded. He is. It's one of the things he's always had, one of his strengths, strictly speaking. His life is, by some measures, nothing but a string of incidents, far too many, of looking up from some book or some thought, only to find people laughing at him. Riding far past his stop on the train, because he is lost in some associative chain that is taking him somewhere incredible. A sudden burst of laughter marking the moment he realises he is talking aloud. People calling him a freak. The occasional teacher telling him he is too advanced for their class. (Triumph!) The ones who told him he could go far, if only he applied himself. (Nonsense.)

He's always applied himself, and that's what's so unfair, what Victor can't see. He's applied himself singularly to the problem of Victor for these last several months, so earnestly, he can't see or hear anything else, he can't think of anyone or anything except this beautiful boy who is his, and always should have been.

"Sweetheart?" Victor's voice is low, barely a whisper. "There is, isn't there?"

"Is what?" He's aware that his voice comes out sounding vexed. He's frightened. He's terrified. Suddenly the conversation is beyond him.

"Room for me," Victor says. "In there."

Sherlock doesn't understand the question, or at least, how Victor could ask it, so he can't answer. The two of them are completely still, while the frogs croak at the edge of the lake, and the insects sing in the high grass, and the stars wheel overhead, rising and setting and no, Sherlock cannot understand, he can't wrap his head around the question at all. Victor is requesting a blade of grass, when he already owns the entire field. After all that's happened, Sherlock can't imagine Victor not knowing. He must know. He has to.

Sherlock shakes his head. There's no way through the problem, if Victor doesn't already know. People are astoundingly stupid. The only way through this is to change tactics, radically.

He's on top of Victor, straddling him, in an instant. He holds Victor's arms down as he lowers himself, pressing his chest to Victor's. Victor's breathing is ragged, with fear or passion, Sherlock can't tell which.

Sherlock makes a note to do something horrible to Seb, perhaps some rotten fish hidden in his room somewhere, when they return to school.

"I love you," Sherlock says. The words are out before he knows what he's saying. "I've been in love with you for as long as I can remember." He means it: his love for Victor is rooted in something that far predates the moment they met. Victor, knowing Victor, loving Victor, is something he's needed his whole life, a deep, cavernous wanting without end.

The change in Victor's expression is as dramatic and beautiful as a storm clearing. He goes from concern, to one of his trademark bright smiles, to something very tender and open and sweet in a matter of moments. And that's just it—he _listens_ , like no one has ever done. Sherlock doesn't need reasons to feel the way he does, but he would give this fact as reason enough, if he had to.

"Why Mr. Holmes," Victor says, freeing one of his arms to place his palm on Sherlock's cheek. "I love you too, you know."

All talk is over. Sherlock bends to kiss Victor's mouth, on fire for him more completely than he's ever been. This isn't the urgent need of the first time, or the wave after wave of heat and curiosity that's driven him each time after that. It's love. It's permission to turn his entire mental focus, the whole volcanic measure of his heart, on Victor.

He intends for Victor to feel it.

He wants to feel it, too.

He kisses Victor hard, biting his lower lip, his tongue pushing into Victor's mouth as far as it can go.

He is not unstudied. He hasn't just dreamed of this, he's researched it. He knows what to do and how to do it.

Victor feels the change. He must. He rolls his hips and groans and grasps Sherlock's thighs where they squeeze Victor's ribs. Victor is rock hard. They both are. Sherlock eases himself a little higher.

Victor's cock rubs against Sherlock's perineum, skin against skin catching, holding there, and it's good, it's amazing. He rides Victor, who tosses his head back and makes a sound in the back of his throat like he's coming undone. Sherlock wonders if he should abandon his plan and simply keep going, see where this leads.

For a few long moments, they grind. Soon enough, he realises that if they keep going, there will be chafing.

Sherlock wants to slide.

He leans over to grab the backpack's strap and drag it close enough that he can dig around in it. He takes out the bag, and dumps it out onto the blanket. Victor folds an arm under his head and watches.

"What's that?"

"Something we need."

Sherlock doesn't know when he got so coy, but he smiles down at Victor as he picks up the lube, and watches as Victor's eyebrows shoot up, and it's worth it, it's totally worth it.

Victor smiles. He seems to be going for smug, but his eyes go wide as Sherlock coats his fingers with lube and lifts up enough to slide one into himself. He closes his eyes and eases the finger out, then pushes two inside. He gasps. It burns, but just a little. Mostly it makes him wonder how fast he can go, if he can hurry this up a bit, because he very much wants to try getting Victor inside him. The body always places limits on these things, always slows him down—

"Can I help?" Victor's hands are running up and down his thighs. His voice wobbles.

"Help? How could you help?"

Victor laughs, low and sweet, and bucks and rolls, dropping Sherlock onto the blanket. He picks up the lube and pours some into the cup of his hand, then rubs his fingers in it. "Might feel better this way." He pushes Sherlock onto his back. "Lift your knees up," he murmurs, as he kisses Sherlock's lips.

Sherlock curses himself, wondering how he could possibly have been such an absolute fool, to imagine he had to open himself all on his own. Victor's tongue slips between Sherlock's lips as Victor's finger slides into him, Victor's thumb rubbing Sherlock's perineum, setting his nerve endings ablaze. They breathe each others' breath, lips and tongues pressing and sliding, Victor's fingers busy gliding inside him, and this alone is a lot, it's incredible. In moments, Victor's inserted another finger. He pushes them apart, experimentally, and Sherlock breaks their kiss to shout into the night.

"Good?" Victor asks.

"Oh! Victor, more, more!"

"Good then."

Sherlock lifts himself up onto his elbows and pulls away from Victor's warm, gentle hand. In a moment he's found the lube. He squirts a generous amount into his palm, and he climbs on top of Victor, busily working Victor's prick, coating it thoroughly. His mind flutters for a moment as he wonders if he should use the condoms he's brought, but he can't abide the idea of an extra step or any kind of layer between them. Victor's not done much, and Sherlock's done nothing at all. It must be okay. It has to be. And if it's not, Victor will say something. He will tell him.

Victor is moaning beneath him, reclined on the grass like a young god, his prick as hard as it gets in Sherlock's hand. Sherlock lifts it and raises himself up, aligning it with the cleft of his arse, sliding it there, teasing Victor, teasing himself, then changing the angle of his hips so it presses against his hole.

"Sweetheart, wait, wait."

"No." He's panting like he's running a marathon. "Don't want to."

"Should we use something? Just to be safe?"

"No. I'm clean." Obvious. Until four days ago, no one had touched him. "You?"

"Yeah—yes. I got tested, school clinic."

Sherlock knows this is no time to be having this conversation. They should have had it already, if they're doing this. He doesn't care. They're having it now.

"Please, Victor. I want you."

"All right. Yes. Yes, sweetheart, yes."

Sherlock aligns himself again, the sweet, wet tip of Victor's cock pressing against him as he lowers himself, increasing the pressure gradually. The tip slips inside, or Sherlock thinks it does, and for a moment he's so stunned and proud of himself, he can't believe it. He's drowning in sensation, the steadily cooling air of the summer night on his skin, the sound of the breeze in the long grass, and warm Victor, his chest heaving, writhing beneath him.

Sherlock sighs, and forces himself to slow down, to breathe. As he exhales, he relaxes deeply around Victor's cock, and eases himself down just a little bit more. Victor makes a sound like he's in pain, and Sherlock freezes.

"Are you okay?" He's ready to dismount, to stop, although it's the last thing he wants.

"Oh my God, yes, sweetheart, it's just—oh God." Victor's hands are on his thighs, soothing, even though Victor is trembling.

Sherlock relaxes more, and lowers himself, and it hurts, a little, it burns, so he pulls back up, and the slide of Victor inside him punches a shout from his lungs.

"Easy," Victor says. There's an edge to his voice. Concern. Fear.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." It's awkward and strange, and if he weren't awash with desire and sensation and a vicious determination to keep going at all costs, he would consider taking a break, but there's no way he'll stop now.

Besides, the small hint he's just had, of what awaits, is more than enough to convince him that he must continue this experiment. He prepares himself, willing himself to open, remembering any of the dozens of times he's done exactly this, in the mind palace. He relaxes, and he allows it to happen this time. Victor's hands on his legs, and the fact that he's gazing into Victor's eyes, the two of them watching each other as this is happening, allows him to slide down Victor's length, opening and opening, until Victor is fully seated inside him.

Victor's cock throbs and twitches, and Sherlock gasps, his eyes going wide, and Victor is smiling and out of breath and writhing, his hands on Sherlock's hips, squeezing, holding him in place. Sherlock's cock is hard between them, and he leans forward, pressing it into Victor's belly. Victor cants his hips up, and the change in angle strikes Sherlock's core, and this must be what they talk about when they talk about prostate stimulation because _holy mother of all sciences_.

The two of them work their way slowly, gingerly, into a constant rhythm that Victor dictates with his hands and his thrusts. Sherlock is all too willing to follow, each stroke sending him to a place he's never been before, a heady abandon so extreme, he loses all sense of his physical boundaries, he fills the entire space between the blanket and the sky. Victor is in him, and there's no separation between them now, and each stroke of Victor's cock sends stars of pleasure shooting through his body, making him cry out into the night, his voice high-pitched and reedy and tremulous.

Victor's hands grip him harder, and Victor goes faster, and it's better and better, it's exactly what Sherlock needs. He braces himself against the ground, pressing down to meet Victor's thrusts, each one pushing him closer and closer to losing his mind completely. He's so aroused, he isn't sure he can come, and for a long, shaking moment, as Victor holds him tight and drives up into him, it feels as if all the air has been punched out of Sherlock's lungs, and he can't breathe, he can't shout, and then he can, he comes and shouts and says Victor's name, and Victor's cock pulses inside him, hot release filling him as Victor groans, and it's so good, it's everything he ever wanted.

The two of them collapse onto each other, and Sherlock drools on Victor's collarbone.  

They're breathing into the night, the warm, shared, ragged breath of something new, something amazing. Sherlock kisses Victor's throat, and Victor gathers Sherlock in his arms and squeezes him tight. At some point, Sherlock realises that Victor's softening cock has slid out of him, and they're both probably a bit filthy. He doesn't move: not yet.

He's awash with relief and a warm calm he's never felt before in his life. He shifts in Victor's arms, so he can kiss Victor's mouth, slowly, sweetly, tasting his lips, his tongue.

The sweat on their skin dries in the night air, leaving Sherlock chilled. Beneath him, Victor is boiling, a furnace. A constant source of warmth.

"You're getting cold, sweetheart," Victor says, dreamily. "We should go back."

"I should take a dip in the lake." Sherlock is sleepy, his limbs heavy. He can't imagine walking all the way back. The water might wake him up enough. Besides, he wants to be clean.

"We could just shower when we get back." Victor kisses the top of Sherlock's head. "Would be warmer."

Sherlock sits up. His limbs are shaking. He's utterly wrung out. He listens to the crickets. The frogs have gone silent.

He takes the soap with him, and walks down to the lake. Victor follows, bumping up against him. The two of them are inseparable now, Sherlock decides. He takes Victor's hand, his thumb drawing circles.

The second swim is colder, but welcome. Sherlock cleans himself in the water, feeling a bit tender, but good, better than he could have imagined. Victor washes himself too, as they stand waist-deep. He pulls Sherlock in, and kisses his cold lips over and over.

Sherlock's teeth chatter as they go back to the end of the dock, to fetch their clothes. They dress in silence, and Victor bundles the blanket around Sherlock's shoulders, and they start the long trudge back toward the house.

"You're tired," Victor says, as they finally reach the door.

Sherlock's limbs are heavy as they drag themselves up the stairs. He can't remember ever feeling this ready for sleep.

"I'm happy," he tells Victor. He wants to tell him he loves him, again. He wants to tell him that over and over. He wants to do it properly, though. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

They crash into bed together. Sherlock curls into Victor's side, his arm flung over Victor's belly, and Victor holds him in the crook of his arm, and kisses his temple, and tells him, "You're wonderful, sweetheart. So wonderful." Victor's voice in Sherlock's ear, whispering these necessary things, sends him into a beautiful sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person._
> 
>  
> 
> ~The Adventure of Silver Blaze

* * *

 

"I think a car's coming!"

Victor balances on his toes, looking out through the rain-streaked window of  his bedroom. He leans against the glass, craning to see further down the laneway. "Yes! Definitely a car!"

Sherlock rolls over in bed, sinks deeper into the pillows, and pulls the blankets up under his chin. His stomach lurches in response to the arrival of Victor's father, and with him, dreaded change. He forces himself to take a deep breath, and lets it out slowly, focusing on Victor, on the beauty of him, as he looks out the window, his back to Sherlock.

Victor is, as always, amazing, unprecedented, perfect. The diagonal swoop of a rumpled blue cotton sheet, snatched from the thoroughly debauched bed, runs from his right shoulder to his left hip like a toga, draped over the swell of his arse, bright against the smooth, flawless expanse of his skin. His calf muscles bunch as he goes up on tip-toes again, head held high, fists bunching in the fabric. He's a Renaissance painting, an allegorical figure: Joy Personified, the happiest of souls.

Sherlock's heart fills to bursting.

He eyes the clock on the bedside table. Analog, battery-run. It sits perched in a battered, hard-shelled case that, should the situation require, folds around it and clasps shut, making it ready for travel. Like everything else in this room, it's a relic from Victor's past: in this case, from the solo camping trips he took to the lake, as a young teenager, out on an adventure overnight, away from the house.

The clock ticks gently, reminding Sherlock of the seconds that are even now slipping away from him, from them. Three in the afternoon. Victor's father wasn't expected back until six. Even here, in the remote countryside, bad surprises are still possible.

Outside, it's as dark as if it's dusk. The weather has taken a cold, wet turn, forcing Victor and Sherlock to stay inside for the last two days, a condition which has proven to be the opposite of misfortune. They've spent their time well, tumbling together in a dozen different ways, and, in between, sleeping, rising, making forays down to the kitchen for food they can bring back to the room. Here they've built a little world of delight, of time spent reading and telling each other stories and watching old movies on the telly, hooked to a VCR, sat on the corner of Victor's desk.

A fire burns in the grate. The room is warm, and private, and safe. Sherlock never wants to leave. Victor, he fears, will have other ideas, very shortly.

From outside comes the sound of gravel crunching under tyres. _No_ , Sherlock thinks, _not yet_. He wishes this moment far away, as fervently as if it were his own death—or, more terrible by far—Victor's.

He looks up to see Victor grinning at him.

"The dad has arrived!" Victor claps his hands, allowing the sheet to slip off his shoulder. He drops it altogether and jumps onto the bed, completely naked. He grabs Sherlock by the knees, shakes him, and tugs at the blankets.

Sherlock hangs onto them, making a sound of protest. He doesn't mean it.

Victor falls on top of Sherlock and snogs him hard, banging their teeth together, crushing him into the bed. Sherlock throws his arms around Victor's neck and loses himself in the kiss, his heart wracked with love.

For a few long moments, lost in Victor—in the smoothness of his fingertips, the softness of his lips, the rough scrape of his unshaven chin—Sherlock forgets to worry about meeting Victor's father. By the time Victor pulls away, Sherlock has tentatively decided, for the thousandth time, that tonight might even be okay.

Everything Victor does pulls a coil loose in Sherlock's chest, tendrils of affection spilling everywhere, entangling the two of them more and more in something so utterly transformative that Sherlock has no idea what he's becoming.

Nothing if not Victor's.

Victor kisses him on the forehead, and stands, gathering some clothes before he heads for the bathroom. Sherlock watches him closely, trying to summon the courage to go into the guest room, and look at his wardrobe. He's been fussing about what he'll wear to meet Victor's father, an anxiety that's been amplified by the fact that he's spent most of the past two days unclothed, and in Victor's bed.

"You don't have to get dressed yet," Victor says, as if reading his mind. He smiles at Sherlock from the bathroom doorway, his excitement to see his father dancing in his eyes. "I'm going to go say hello, but the dad will take the rest of the afternoon to catch up on correspondence and phone calls. He'll want to talk to Alcott about how the house is doing too. Won't expect to meet you until dinner."

Sherlock tries to refrain from wincing at the idea of dinner. "I should pick out some clothes."

Victor shakes his head. "We'll pick some out together. Coordinate our outfits, yeah? I won't be gone long. You stay right here."

"I've been here for forty-six hours and seventeen minutes."

"So? Why stop now? Dinner won't be 'til eight. Loads of time."

"True."

It feels like none at all.

Sherlock is still in bed, wondering how much research and development would be required to build a machine capable of stopping time, when Victor emerges from the shower, dressed in worn jeans and a moss green wool jumper, smelling like pricey shampoo and soap, sweet and herbal, as he bends down over Sherlock and musses his hair.

Sherlock wraps his arms around Victor like a spider monkey and refuses to let go, trailing wet kisses over Victor's neck, then pausing to suck at the sensitive skin under Victor's ear. Victor pulls Sherlock to his feet. He holds him, fingers rubbing the knots from Sherlock's back, squeezing the fleshy muscle of his buttocks. Sherlock sighs into Victor's jumper. They hold for longer than they probably should. Victor has somewhere to be.

"Now, sweetheart, you're not worried, are you?"

The question isn't surprising, really. Victor wants to look after him, as always.

Sherlock studies the collar of Victor's jumper. He considers the question, and how best to answer it so Victor won't be upset, even as he feels his face crumple. "No."

Victor gathers him into his arms again, holding him tightly. "I love you," he says. "I love you and you're wonderful. There's nothing to worry about at all. You're going to love the dad. I know, you don't like most people, but you will like him. He's smart, and he knows stuff. Lots of great stories. And he will love you. He loves anyone clever."

Sherlock's head is still buried in Victor's shoulder, but he relaxes in Victor's arms, lets go a little, taking in this new information. "He does?" Sherlock can be clever. Beyond clever.

Victor kisses him on the cheek, and buries his face in Sherlock's hair. "He's been all over the world, seen all kinds of things. Been in a bit of trouble, too. Appreciates anyone who thinks for themselves. You'll see. Please, just try not to worry."

Sherlock nods, even as he wonders if things might end up in his favour. That seems unlikely, but, in light of Victor, and all the miracles he's wrought in Sherlock's life, he decides that he can, perhaps, trust in the possibility of a good outcome.

After Victor leaves the room and quietly shuts the door behind him, Sherlock crawls back into bed. He gazes at the rain pelting against the wide bank of windows, and listens to the crackling fire, and recalls the things Victor has told him about his father.

Isaac Trevor is a rarity: a genuinely self-made man, whose company, Trevor Industries, brought several significant technological shortcuts to British telecommunications. Trevor Industries, UK edition, is a branch of Trevor Industries, Ghana, where Victor's father was born. He emigrated to England in 1971, with Victor's mother, Sandra. She died in 1980, of ovarian cancer. Victor was nearly two.

Victor's father never remarried. This in itself is a curiosity. A man like Isaac Trevor—wealthy, successful—would have no trouble finding someone, if he wanted to. Must have remained single by choice. Sherlock speculates: perhaps he was so devastated by the loss of his wife that he could never love another. A tragedy, but a romantic one.

He wonders when he became so soppy. He knows the answer very well: when he met Victor. When Victor took an interest in him.

The rain hits the window in sudden bursts. Sherlock shifts on the bed, warm under the thick blankets. It might, perhaps, be a rough evening, weather-wise. As if in agreement with his thoughts, thunder rumbles in the distance.

Sherlock sighs heavily. Meeting Victor's father is a problem, one he should be able to solve.

Maybe the answer is simple. Isaac Trevor likes clever, so Sherlock will be clever. He'll be the cleverest thing Victor's father has ever seen. He'll be sharp; he'll be bright. He'll be a thousand razors and the blazing core of the sun, if it means not letting Victor down.

Everything is fine. It's great. Let Victor come back to the room; let him tell Sherlock it's time to go meet his dad. He can do this. He pushes the covers down to his waist, and sits up, determined.

As if Sherlock's new mood has summoned him, Victor opens the bedroom door and comes in, smiling softly, his eyes shining.

"Well. You look like exactly what I need in my life, Sherlock Holmes," he whispers, his voice thick with emotion.

Sherlock takes in Victor's posture and the way he moves, tentative, almost shy.

Oh. Of course. Victor wasn't just saying hello. He and his father are close. They share information freely. Sherlock's stomach turns.

"Everything okay?" Victor sits on the bed, and holds Sherlock's knees through the blankets.

"Yes." Stroppy. He checks himself, even as his fears jump on him like a pack of lions, threatening to tear him limb from limb. "Why wouldn't it be okay?"

Victor chews his lower lip, and cocks an eyebrow. "I dunno."

Sherlock takes a pillow from beside him on the bed, and hugs it. He can't move.

"I told him." Victor's grin takes over, before he can say anything more. He laughs.

"About us?" Sherlock hears the fear in his own voice, a tremor giving him away.

Victor seems not to notice. He bounces a little on the bed. Happy. Overjoyed. "Yeah. Yes. He's pleased. Truly. Told me he knew it would happen. People like to say that, don't they? Like to be right?"

Sherlock wants to be as elated as Victor is. His skin crawls. "They do."

If pretending they're just friends was ever an option, that's gone now. Sherlock realises that he wanted it to be there, that ambiguity. He tries to picture sitting at the dinner table, Victor's father watching him as he speaks. He can only imagine feeling utterly exposed.

He feels Victor watching him, but he can't speak. He stares down at the pillow. The pillowcase has white buttons on it, to keep the pillow inside. Seems like a good idea. Practical. He wonders why buttons aren't a pillowcase standard feature. Makes a note to himself: sew buttons on everything he owns. Stabilise all fabrics. Hold himself together, hold his insides in. Could be crucial. Could be life saving.

"I know it's silly," Victor says, jiggling Sherlock's knee. "I'm silly, sweetheart. But this makes it all feel real to me, you know? It's official."

This moment should be a good one. Sherlock should be happy, should, at least, acknowledge Victor's feelings. He understands that Victor means well, that he means for all of this to be nice. The two of them, a couple. Of course they are. They're boyfriends. They're in love. It shouldn't be so difficult. Sherlock shouldn't be so difficult.

The faintest trace of a frown pulls at the corner of Victor's mouth. Unacceptable.

Everything Sherlock's been trying not to feel jumps up to the surface of his skin all at once. His head swims and his shoulders bunch, and he is turning into a bitter ball of doubt, panic seeping in at the edges. He can't explain, so he grits his teeth, and all that comes out is a sound like a growl. Total frustration.

He's always had to hide. He doesn't know any other way. It's Mycroft's fault, really. Mycroft has always had to be clever, always known everything, forcing Sherlock to go about his business in a hidden, cryptic manner, if he didn't want to be teased mercilessly.

So he's stuck, clutching Victor's pillow, unable to offer what Victor needs. The only way to please him is to tell him all of this is okay, that it's good. It isn't, not for Sherlock. It's too much. Too frightening.

Victor, of course, does what Victor always does. He sees, and he understands, and he acts from a complete lack of concern for himself. "Oh, Sherlock. What's wrong?"

The question pushes Sherlock over the brink. He takes a breath. _Start over, say something_ —but it comes out as a choked garble. A few hot tears gather in the corner of his eyes. He feels far too sorry for himself. Far too vulnerable. It's ridiculous, given everything he and Victor have built together, over the last week. Sherlock swipes at his face with the back of his hand.

Victor gathers him into his arms and holds him, his wool jumper soft against Sherlock's chest. "Hush. Just—it's all right. Whatever it is."

Victor combs his fingers through Sherlock's hair, and his hand trembles, and Sherlock knows this is bad. It isn't fair, but he can't help himself. He cries into Victor's jumper, all soft whimpers and inarticulate noises, a stupid child, a snivelling fool.

Victor reaches behind him for the box of tissues on the bedside table, and places the box by Sherlock's hip. After a long, painful interval, Sherlock manages to take one, and blow his nose without being too disgusting. He's sure he's a mess.

"It's all right," Victor tells him again. "I'm sorry if I said something wrong."

"No. Wasn't you. It was me. I'm—" He's all sorts of things. Wrong. Frightened. Exhausted. Unready. Faking, and bad at faking. The numerous attempts he's made, to talk himself up to managing this evening, are obvious shams. He adds _disappointed in self_ to the list of things he is.

"You're a lot more nervous than I thought. My fault. I wasn't paying attention," Victor tells him, sitting back far enough that they can look at each other. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Sherlock shakes his head, and looks at the window, then back at Victor, who is frowning again. Not good, then. He will have to do better. "All right."

"All right, you want to talk?"

"Yes."

"Okay." Victor's eyebrows lift, and he waits.

Fabulous. Sherlock has nothing to say, no way to justify his behaviour.   

Instead, he fidgets on the bed, all awkwardness. He looks at Victor, beloved Victor, everything-he-ever-wanted Victor, at the sadness now taking residence in his eyes, and his thoughts slide into a place he never thought he would go, and he speaks without thinking it through.

"I don't want to tell my parents about us."

Victor frowns more deeply. "Oh."

"It's not you," Sherlock says. "It's me." Dreadful. He's dreadful. "It's them. It's—the three of them. My parents and Mycroft. They're unbearable."

Victor has yet to remove his hands from Sherlock's knees. At Sherlock's words, his head tilts. The corner of his mouth lifts. "You've never talked about them. Is it bad?"

Sherlock sighs heavily. "Daddy knows. Sorted it out on his own. I think."

"Was he mean about it? Because Sherlock, if your parents are cruel, I'll understand, and I want to help."

"No, no. He was happy, I suppose. Lots of time spent trying to shove me into therapy, when I was younger." He smiles tremulously, but inside, he's dying, upbraiding himself. Confession. Ugly, stupid. Should be unnecessary. Still, he can't stop. The open curiosity on Victor's face, the wistful smile, tells him he needs to keep talking. Very well, then. "Lots of Sunday afternoon drives, trying to make me talk about it, trying to sort out why I didn't like other children, why I had no friends."

"Okay." Victor's patience is unparalleled. Sherlock knows he must be testing it.

"I'm not like you," he says, finally, a return to established territory. "People don't like me."

Victor squeezes his knee. "I like you."

Sherlock shakes his head, his temper rising. There has to be a shorter path to making Victor understand. "I know, but no one else does. No one. And I don't like them, do you understand?"

A sudden burst of wind blows through the tree outside Victor's window. Branches scrape against the glass. Sherlock wants to stand, to pace, to leave, to walk down the laneway in the bitter, driving rain, and escape this. He forces himself to stay put, for Victor.

"I'm not supposed to have this," he says. His voice is loud, matching the rising tempest outside. He pulls the covers back, making for the side of the bed opposite to Victor. His feelings are awful, inappropriate. Victor will see, and Victor won't want him to stay.

Victor grabs hold of Sherlock's arm. "Wait."

Relief courses through him.

Victor pulls Sherlock down, so he's lying on his back. He spreads himself out alongside Sherlock, then half rolls on top of him, pressing him into the bed. Sherlock lets him, without protest. He doesn't know what to do with himself, anyway.

"I'm not supposed to have this," he repeats. It feels like truth.

Victor strokes Sherlock's hair. "Well, you do, though. You have this, and me. So, what are you going to do, Sherlock Holmes?" His voice is soft and gentle, his face inches away from Sherlock's.

Sherlock looks at him. "I don't know. I want this, but I don't know how to have it."

"You've been doing pretty well so far, with the having."

Sherlock can't fight the way his emotions turn, the lightness creeping into his belly and chasing away the crawling fear. He smiles, despite himself. "It's just been you and me. It's everyone else I'm not sure I can manage."

"We'll figure it out together." Victor watches him, his eyes steady. He means it. He means everything he says.

"You've never met Mycroft."

"Well, when I do, I'll just turn on the charm. He won't be able to resist." Victor smiles, and for a moment Sherlock thinks that he might like to see that meeting. Mycroft's bitterness is surely no match for Victor's warmth and sweetness.

"He'll make fun of me. He'll give me hell over this."

"I won't let him. And as for your parents, well, we'll sort it all out. None of this will seem so bad with the dad on your side. You'll see. He's not like other parents. He's truly not, Sherlock."

Sherlock sighs under Victor's shifting weight. He's solid and heavy. Comforting. More real than Mycroft and Mummy and Daddy.

"Kiss me, sweetheart."

"What?"

"You heard me."

Victor's deep, gentle eyes hold worlds. The curve of his lips contains boundless mercy, patience, laughter. He waits for Sherlock to make up his mind. He won't push. Sherlock knows this, so he takes his time.

He isn't sure he's said everything he should say. It feels insufficient.

His family is disappointing. Mycroft is terrible, will be terrible. Still, Victor wants Sherlock. It's something. It's a lot.

"Okay." He wraps his arms around Victor's neck.

Victor dips his head down, and Sherlock kisses him, with a sharp intake of breath as he lets go, miraculously, of everything that's been bothering him. The kiss is slow and simple and sweet. Sherlock takes his time; they take their time, and the clock ticks on the bedside table, counting out their last few hours. The fire burns down, leaving only glowing embers, and the rain pours down outside the window, filling the room with its quiet rush, audible under the sound of the blanket shifting as Sherlock tries to pull it back, under the sound of Victor's breath catching in the back of his throat.

Victor pushes himself up onto his knees, strips off the soft green jumper, and throws it to the floor. Sherlock bunches the pillow up under his head so he can watch as Victor stands, unbuttons and unzips his jeans, and pushes them down.

Their skin is heat on heat, limbs tangling as Victor lies down beside him and kisses him again, folding Sherlock in his arms. Sherlock closes his eyes and allows himself to relax, his mind moving in long, languid spirals, down into the mind palace. He needs to go to ground, to return to his own centre, and, above all, to store the sensations moving through him: the soft warm press of Victor's lips; the slide of Victor's tongue; the way he bites, gently, the lobe of Sherlock's ear, and giggles as Sherlock makes a throaty sound of pleasure. This is his home now: a place of comfort and ease. He needs to remember that.

Sherlock exists in two places at once: in Victor's arms, and on a night-warm pavilion under starry skies, where all is hushed whispers and quiet corners and secret assignations in the dark, the population of the mind palace coming together in myriad wonderful ways, in honour of everything Sherlock and Victor have become. It is just as it was the last time he visited: wonderful, mirroring the transformation Sherlock himself has undergone.

Sherlock leans on a marble balustrade and tilts his face up to the sky. The stars wheel in the heavens above the balcony. They're enormous, bright glowing spheres that sing through the dark, a chorus that accompanies the sighs and soft declarations of love, the embraces of all kinds, between men of all kinds, permitted and honoured and given a place here, inside him.

This place, he reminds himself, is his, and his alone. Victor is the cause of so many of its features, but he doesn't even know it exists. Mycroft taught Sherlock how to make a mind palace, but it was Sherlock's ingenuity, his yearning for beauty, that made this place into an internal paradise.

The mind palace isn't just his. It's _him_ : it's what he built, an homage to love, to pleasure, to the good things that he can have, that no one can take from him, not even Mycroft. He did this, himself. He made something unprecedented and new. It's all thanks to Victor, but Sherlock admits, here, now, that he had something to do with it as well.

He is worthy. He is loved.  

He really is different now. He really can have this, and have Victor.

"Sherlock. My Sherlock."

Sherlock pops like a bubble back up to the surface, to the warm circle of Victor's arms. Victor sucks his clavicle, and shifts down to Sherlock's right nipple, where he uses the flat of his tongue to pass over it again and again, sending sharp darts of pleasure straight to Sherlock's groin.

Sherlock caresses the back of Victor's head, resting his hand there, rubbing his fingers over Victor's hair. Victor's palm runs the length of Sherlock's ribcage, and reaches down to cup his prick, setting every nerve on fire, even as Victor presses himself against Sherlock's leg.

Sherlock's eyelids slide shut. By some mutual agreement, the two of them are quiet, their usual moans and sighs replaced by rough breaths, quiet gasps. Sherlock reaches down between them, taking Victor in his hand, their foreheads pressed together, as they move slowly, and it's so easy, so soft and gentle, so private. Victor rolls his hips and thrusts into Sherlock's hand. A silent agreement passes between them, that Victor should go first. It's his big night, the moment he's been looking forward to. For once, Sherlock doesn't want to hurry his way toward his own climax. He holds back, a little, as Victor's hand loosens its grip on him.

Sherlock loves how firm and sweet Victor's cock feels against his palm, the way it promises to fill his hand with Victor's release. He opens his eyes and watches: Victor's closed eyes, the furrow between his brows, signifying concentration, trust. Sherlock's entire body seems to float, anchored by Victor's arm slung across his waist, by Victor's gasps as Sherlock works him just the way he likes, palm sliding along Victor's shaft, his fingers rubbing over the head with each pass, more slowly and languidly than Sherlock would want it, complete, long strokes that keep Victor sighing, the movement in time with Victor's breath, growing faster by tiny increments for what seems like ages, until the whole thing tips over the edge all of a sudden.  One moment, Victor's breath is singing out of him, long, deep, meditative, in time with Sherlock's strokes. The next, Victor's hand clutches Sherlock's shoulder, holding him tightly, his cock rock hard as he thrusts three times. He shudders and comes in bursts, spilling out over Sherlock's hand.

Sherlock watches Victor come down, his eyes still closed, his breath easing. For a moment it's as if he can feel his way under Victor's skin, into the looseness of his muscles, and he understands on a marrow-deep level, how open Victor's heart is, how much he believes in Sherlock, how much he's counting on Sherlock to get everything right.

Victor opens his eyes and smiles, then sits up, easing Sherlock onto his back. He rises onto his elbow, and watches Sherlock as he runs his hand over Sherlock's cock, still hard and full, warm and thick against Victor's fingers, which go to work now, sending trails of pleasure running in all directions under Sherlock's skin. Sherlock closes his eyes, knowing Victor is watching him, and he wills himself to let his heart be open, to let Victor see that he's ready to try, to do whatever Victor needs tonight.

The steady rhythmic movement of Victor's hand is both a comfort and a tease, a promise and a fulfillment of promise. It's warm and firm and, as Victor leans in to kiss Sherlock's cheek, to murmur encouragement into his ear— _yes, that's it, sweetheart, that's it_ —Sherlock is suddenly ready to turn inside out, his heart wide open and his back arching and his hand steady on Victor's, his will to press forward, always moving, always striving, taking him into this moment, into the rough delight peaking and gathering in Victor's hand, the cry building in his throat, mind gone, blood rushing in his ears. Everything he is, everything he wants to be, gushes out as his breath sputters, and he comes, in a series of waves that seem like they will never cease, until they do, abruptly, and he's back, awake and alive, a laugh rushing out of him.

His limbs are heavy, as he blinks up at the ceiling, Victor's lips against his ear, Victor pulling him into his arms. They lie still, for a few long moments, until Sherlock becomes aware of the sound of the clock ticking on Victor's bedside table, of time stuttering back to them, sweeping them onward.

At some point in the last few minutes, the rain has cleared, and the sun has come out. It filters through the wet, heavy leaves outside the window, setting the hanging water drops on fire, bright sparks against the greenery, dripping like hot tears of joy to the ground below.

Sherlock sighs, and closes his eyes. With the weight of Victor's arm across his chest, he lapses into unconsciousness, effortlessly.

When he wakes up, Victor is sitting up beside him on the bed. It's quarter to seven. Time to get ready for dinner. Sherlock holds Victor's wrist, and Victor smiles down at him. Together they'll get through this. Together, they'll be brilliant.

Together, they stand and go into the shower in Victor's bathroom. They linger under the hot water, as Victor fills his palm with shampoo and washes Sherlock's hair, and the two of them kiss, thick foam running down over their faces, Sherlock giggling and taking the soap from the dish, using it to lather the entirety of Victor's body, running his hands, slick and swift, over each part of him.

Victor's prick stiffens under Sherlock's palm, and Victor pushes Sherlock up against the shower wall, holding up his leg to rut against him. Sherlock is instantly hard, aware of the time slipping away from them, even as Victor's prick aligns with his, and they frot against each other, steady and relentless, sweating into the hot stream of water that runs down Victor's scalp, over his shoulders, and down their chests, to where they grind against each other. They're breathless and gasping and Sherlock tastes hot water and shampoo lather and Victor's mouth and Victor's tongue as they take each other one last time before the evening starts. He presses forward, meeting Victor's thrusts, hot and hard and fast.

His foot slips, and goes out from under him, and he clings to Victor with one hand on his shoulder, the other clasped on Victor's arse. He holds Victor tightly, as best he can, as Victor takes the whole of Sherlock's weight, the entire world distilled down to the heat and pleasure gathering between their legs.

The sound of the running water seems to give them license to be as loud now as they were quiet earlier: Sherlock shouts nonsense noises as Victor pumps against him; Victor grunts like he's Atlas, heaving the weight of the world on his shoulders, each thrust an effort as he pushes into Sherlock. Sherlock has just found his sweet spot, the perfect angle where his cock catches on Victor's a little, the head pressing into Victor's belly, when he comes explosively, swallowing too much shower water all at once. He coughs as Victor squeezes against him, spurting against Sherlock's softening cock.

Victor places Sherlock down gently, making sure his feet touch the shower floor as Sherlock coughs some more, laughing and wheezing, his face flushed with a need for air and the heat of the shower and exertion. He looks up at Victor, and he can't help grinning. How can he doubt anything, when they're so clearly made for each other?

They rinse themselves off and climb out of the shower, using soft green towels to dry each other. Holding hands, they go into the guest room and pull open the wardrobe doors, and look at the clothes Sherlock has brought, just as Victor has promised they would.

Victor chooses some things for him to wear: a burgundy jumper over a crisp white shirt, and a pair of soft grey wool trousers, suitable for the colder summer weather. Sherlock takes a moment in the guest bathroom to shave, and style his hair. Wouldn't do to be less than fastidious. Not tonight. When he emerges, Victor stands in the open doorway that leads back to his room, wearing the same clothes as before, green jumper and worn jeans, looking soft and handsome.

 _My boyfriend_ , Sherlock thinks. _That's my boyfriend_. He feels a thrill, unprecedented, and all at once, he understands what Victor must have been feeling all along. This is exciting, this dressing up, this moment, in which they get to claim each other, even if only before an audience of one.

Victor must see the change, must sense Sherlock's confidence, because his smile comes with a raised eyebrow. "Ready?"

"Yes."

He is.

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover Art] for Oh!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6965686) by [justacookieofacumberbatch (buffyholic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buffyholic/pseuds/justacookieofacumberbatch)




End file.
